About

Vision

The WE3Lab seeks to educate the next generation of environmental engineers and to influence the national water research agenda through interdisciplinary research on technology performance, its contextualization, and policy implications in operational systems.

Strategy

We work in close collaboration with intellectually diverse scholars to identify translational opportunities that will rapidly advance the field of water treatment research.  We recruit lab members that are diverse, passionate, risk taking, collaborative, creative, supportive, healthy, and fun loving.  We encourage lab members to pursue independent lines of research that prepare them for diverse future careers while contributing to the lab mission.

We specialize in combining technoeconomic analysis with bench-scale experiments and advanced data analytics to conceive of and advance transformative solutions to meeting water demand in a carbon constrained world.  Conventional water treatment technologies are approaching their thermodynamic limit; to realize further energy savings requires a series of paradigm shifts in technology deployment, process integration, and materials design.

Values

Diversity: The WE3lab believes that diversity is key to excellence and achievement.  Our lab’s impact requires that we enthusiastically embrace diverse perspectives, peoples, cultures, and disciplines.  We use recruitment, outreach, and advocacy in constant pursuit of these values.

Growth Mindsets:  The WE3lab strives to cultivate a growth mindset in mentorship and training.  Positive reinforcement and constructive feedback are the core tools that we use to help one another meaningfully improve our skills and our work.  

Respect: We respect the individual goals of all group members and are committed to supporting these goals within the framework of our shared mission.  Respect is manifest by balancing these individual and group goals through open and honest conversation.

Financial Stewardship: We are honored to receive federal grant monies and private donations to support our research.  With this honor comes the responsibility of spending resources that maximize our impact. Gifts supporting our research may be directed to the WE3Lab by contacting Prof. Mauter.

Partnerships

Our lab is honored to be affiliated with several interdisciplinary centers that share our broader mission of sustainable water and energy systems:

Prof. Meagan Mauter serves as the research director for the National Alliance for Water Innovation (NAWI), a research consortium formed in 2017 to partner with the U.S. Department of Energy to create the Energy-Water Desalination Hub. NAWI envisions an affordable, energy-efficient, and resilient water supply for the U.S. economy through decentralized, small-scale, fit-for-purpose desalination. .  

Prof. Meagan Mauter is a Center Fellow, by courtesy, in Stanford's Woods Institute for the Environment.  The Woods Institute seeks to produce breakthrough environmental knowledge and solutions that sustain people and planet today and for generations to come.  

Our group also participates in seminars and activities through the Precourt Institute for Energy, the Water in the West, and ReNUWIt: an NSF ERC on Reinventing the Nation's Urban Water Infrastructure. 

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