William A. Tarpeh | |
|---|---|
| Education | Stanford University University of California, Berkeley |
| Awards | MacArthur Fellowship |
| Scientific career | |
| Institutions | Stanford University |
| Doctoral advisor | Kara Nelson |
| Website | https://cheme.stanford.edu/people/william-tarpeh |
William A. Tarpeh is an Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering at Stanford University. [1] Tarpeh is a 2025 MacArthur Fellow. [2] [3] Tarpeh's research is centered around recovering valuable resources from wastewater. He is a fellow of the Stanford Precourt Institute for Energy and the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. [4]
Tarpeh obtained his BS in chemical engineering at Stanford University in 2012 (minoring in African Studies [5] ), and his MS and PhD in environmental engineering at University of California, Berkeley (in 2013 and 2017, respectively). [6] He was a Ron Brown Scholar (2008) [7] and a 28twelve Foundation Fellow (2014). [8] Tarpeh conducted postdoctoral research at the University of Michigan. [9]
Tarpeh attended Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Fairfax, Virginia. [5]
In 2023, Tarpeh was named among "AIChE’s 35 Under 35" [10] and the "2023 Rising Stars in Environmental Research" by ACS Environmental Au, [11] and in 2018 among the "Forbes 30 under 30 - Science". [12] [13] In 2016, Tarpeh was named by NBC in its NBCBLK28, as one of 28 African American innovators under the age of 28. [14] [15] Tarpeh is a Cooke Young Scholar and College Scholar of the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, [16] and he received the foundation's 2020 Quinn Prize. [5] [17] Tarpeh also won Jeopardy Kids Week at the age of twelve. [18]
In 2025, Tarpeh earned a MacArthur Fellowship. [2] [3] [19] Previously, he received a 2024 National Science Foundation CAREER Award, [20] a 2022 Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award, [21] and the 2023 Paul L. Busch Award, a $100,000 research prize presented by the Water Research Foundation. [22]
In 2024, Tarpeh gave a talk at the 2024 Stanford Reunion Homecoming. [23]
Tarpeh conducts research in global sanitation in the field of development engineering, [24] to recover resources from wastewater, [13] turning waste chemicals into products such as fertilizers and disinfectants and cleaning the water in the process. [25] During his PhD work, he developed a method for creating fertilizer by extracting nitrogen from urine and combining it with water. [13] Tarpeh continues to engineer new chemical processes to extract nutrients from urine and is considered a burgeoning leader in his field. [26]
Tarpeh's projects include ammonia recovery from wastewater, as well as the removal of lithium from spent batteries and its reusal. [4] He develops resource recovery technologies to recycle nitrogen, sulfur, and phosphorus with minimal infrastructure and energy. [27] Tarpeh leads pilot projects in Kenya and California, in an effort to transform how communities deal with pollution, fertilizer shortages, and climate change. [28]
Tarpeh's work has been featured in short videos by the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, [29] Interesting Engineering, [30] and the University of California, Berkeley. [31]