Isabel C. Escobar is a professor in the Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering at the
University of Kentucky
The University of Kentucky (UK, UKY, or U of K) is a public land-grant research university in Lexington, Kentucky. Founded in 1865 by John Bryan Bowman as the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Kentucky, the university is one of the state's ...
in
Lexington, Kentucky
Lexington is a city in Kentucky, United States that is the county seat of Fayette County. By population, it is the second-largest city in Kentucky and 57th-largest city in the United States. By land area, it is the country's 28th-largest ...
. She is also associate director of the Center of Membrane Sciences and co-director of the College of Engineering Undergraduate Research Scholars Program, both at the University of Kentucky.
Escobar has spent more than 20 years in testing biological stability of distribution systems and developing chemical membrane materials for water treatment and reuse.
Education
Escobar attended school at Instituto Pio XI in
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the Rio de Janeiro (state), state of the same name, Brazil's List of Brazilian states by population, third-most populous state, and the List of largest citi ...
, Brazil from 1982 to 1991. She received her PhD, M.S. and BSc in Environmental Engineering from the University of Central Florida. She was also a
United States Environmental Protection Agency
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is an independent executive agency of the United States federal government tasked with environmental protection matters. President Richard Nixon proposed the establishment of EPA on July 9, 1970; it ...
(EPA) Science to Achieve Results (STAR) Fellow.
Career
Escobar has been the lead principal investigator on numerous federally-funded grants and holds one patent for a breakthrough anti- biofouling feed spacer material. She has edited two books, ''Sustainable Water For the Future: Water Recycling versus Desalination,'' and ''Modern Applications in Membrane Science and Technology'', and has written numerous papers.
Escobar focuses her research on the development and improvement of polymeric membrane materials for water treatment and reuse operations. She has been the private investigator of numerous membrane research projects in the field of membrane separations. Among her current projects is work on (1) temperature-sensitive membranes activated using superparamagnetic iron nanoparticles; (2) anti-biofouling membranes; (3) biofouling mechanisms; (4) nanoparticle fouling mechanisms; (5) bio-derived membranes; (6) green membrane fabrication and scale up; and (7) photocatalytic membranes.
Escobar chaired the 2006 American Water Works Association (AWWA) Desalination Symposium in
Honolulu
Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the islan ...
, Hawaii. In 2007, she chaired th NAMS 2007 Annual Meeting in Orlando, Florida. In 2012, she chaired the NAMS 2012 Annual Meeting in
Lake Erie
Lake Erie ( "eerie") is the fourth largest lake by surface area of the five Great Lakes in North America and the eleventh-largest globally. It is the southernmost, shallowest, and smallest by volume of the Great Lakes and therefore also has t ...
water crisis, being interviewed by several media outlets including NPR and the
Wall Street Journal
''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...
, among others. In 2015, she gave a TEDx talk on Biologically-Inspired Sustainable Water Treatment. In 2016, she co-chaired the ECI Advanced Membrane Technology VII conference, and in 2020, she chaired the Second Pan American Nanotechnology (Pannano II) in Brazil.
In 2010, Escobar was named Professor of Chemical and Environmental Engineering at the
University of Toledo
The University of Toledo (UToledo or UT) is a public research university in Toledo, Ohio. It is the northernmost campus of the University System of Ohio. The university also operates a Health Science campus, which includes the University of ...
and interim assistant dean for Research Development and Outreach for the College of Engineering. She has been Professor of Chemical and Materials Engineering at the University of Kentucky since 2015. She is an advisor for the University of Kentucky's Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers. She has been Associate Editor of the ''Environmental Progress and Sustainable Energy Journal'', published quarterly by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. She is Editor-in-Chief of the ''Journal of Desalination & Water Reuse'', published by the
International Desalination Association
The International Desalination Association (IDA) is the world's leading resource for information and professional development for the global desalination industry – and the only global association focused exclusively on desalination and desalinat ...
.
Awards
* Northwest Ohio
YWCA
The Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) is a nonprofit organization with a focus on empowerment, leadership, and rights of women, young women, and girls in more than 100 countries.
The World office is currently based in Geneva, Swi ...
Milestone Award for Education (2009)
* University of Toledo College of Engineering Outstanding Teacher Award (2009)
* Toledo 20 Under 40 Leadership award (2009)
* American Institute of Chemical Engineers Separations Division FRI/John G. Kunesh Award (2012)