Liang-Ming Whang, Applied Sciences Curriculum Vitae PERSONAL INFORMATION Liang-Ming Whang Name: Address: Department of Environmental Engineering National Cheng Kung University No.1 University Road, Tainan, Taiwan 701, ROC +886-6-2757575 ext 65837 Tel: Fax: +886-6-2752790 E-mail: whang@mail.ncku.edu.tw Website: ____________________________________________________________________________ EDUCATION Jan. 2002 Ph.D Civil and Environmental University of Wisconsin-Madison Engineering Dec. 1997 M.S.. Civil and Environmental University of Wisconsin-Madison Engineering May 1992 B.S. Environmental Engineering National Cheng Kung University,Taiwan ____________________________________________________________________________ POSITIONS HELD 2007-present Associate Professor, Department of Environmental Engineering, National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan. 2006-present Adjunct Assistant Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Southern Illinois University-Carbondale, USA. 2003-2007 Assistant Professor, Department of Environmental Engineering, National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan. 2002-2003 Post-Doctoral Research Associate, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA. ____________________________________________________________________________ HONORS AND AWARDS 2008-2009, Marquis Who’s Who 10th Anniversary Edition of Who's Who in Science and Engineering. 2008 and 2009, Marquis Who’s Who 25th and 26th Anniversary Edition of Who's Who in the World. A-14 Liang-Ming Whang, Applied Sciences 2007, Outstanding Young Engineer Award, The Chinese Institute of Environmental Engineering. 2007, Young Star Research Grant Award, College of Engineering, National Cheng Kung University. 2004 (1), 2006 (2), 2007 (2), Best Paper Awards (total 5) of Chinese Institute of Environmental Engineer Annual Conference. ____________________________________________________________________________ SELECTED PUBLICATIONS Whang, L. M., Liu, P. W. G., Ma, C. C., Cheng, S. S. (2008) Application of biosurfactants, rhamnolipid and surfactin, for enhanced biodegradation of diesel-contaminated water and soil. Journal of Hazardous Materials. Vol. 151, pp. 155-163. Lin, P. Y., Whang, L. M., Wu, Y. R., Ren, W. J., Hsiao, C. J., Li, S. L., and Chang, J. S. (2007) Biological Hydrogen Production of the genus Clostridium: Metabolic Study and Mathematical Model Simulation. International Journal of Hydrogen Energy. Vol. 32, pp. 1728-1735. Whang, L.M., Filipe, C. D. M., and Park, J.K. (2007) Model-based evaluation of competition between polyphosphate-accumulating organisms and glycogen-accumulating organisms. Water Research. Vol. 41, pp. 1312-1324. Whang, L. M., Hsiao, C. J., and Cheng, S. S. (2006) A Dual-Substrate Steady State Model for Biological Hydrogen Production in an Anaerobic Hydrogen Fermentation Process. Biotechnology and Bioengineering. Vol. 95(3), pp. 492-500. Park, H.D., Whang, L.M., Ruesser, S., and Noguera, D. R. (2006) Combining aerated-anoxic and UCT processes for biological nutrient removal: lessons from a full-scale study. Water Environment Research. Vol. 78, pp. 637-641. Whang, L.M. and Park, J.K. (2006). Competition between polyphosphate-accumulating organisms and glycogen-accumulating organisms – effect of temperature and sludge age. Water Environment Research. Vol. 78, pp. 4-11. RESEARCH INTERESTS ____________________________________________________________________________ 1. Biological nutrient removal of wastewater treatment processes 2. Bioremediation of petroleum hydrocarbon contaminated soil and groundwater 3. Biological hydrogen production from organic wastes My students and I are mainly interested in developing environmental biotechnology, which combines both traditional and molecular methods, in order to solve environment-related problems and issues. Currently, there are three major research topics conducted in my laboratory. For the first project, we target on nitrogen removal from wastewaters because water shortage and wastewater reuse issues can be one of the most important concerns in the 21th century. Since 2006, my laboratory has joined the global network of microbial observatory for nitrifying bacteria, initiated by Professor Craig Criddle at the Stanford A-15 Liang-Ming Whang, Applied Sciences University, in order to test the hypothesis that wastewater treatment bioreactors constitute islands of metabolic diversity arising from local differences in selection pressures and leading to distinctive microbial community structures and functions. It is anticipate that the elucidation of the variability within ammonia-oxidizing communities as well as the factors that are associated with this variability will allow the development of more robust, efficient process control for biological wastewater treatment processes. The second project is an integration of multi-disciplinary technology in order to develop a systematic environmental biotechnology (SEMBT) for bioremediation of petroleum-contaminated soil and groundwater. The highlight of the SEMBT is application of molecular methods that have been regularly used in life science and medical technology to diagnose microbial community information in environmental samples and scientific support of bioremediation strategy. Once we have a better understanding of physical, chemical, and microbial characteristics of contaminated soil, we are able to conduct phase study and then determine the bioremediation strategy either going with bioaugmentation if oil-degrading consortia is not present (or not enough) or with biostimulation by addition of biosurfactants to increase bioavailability of petroleum hydrocarbon. The third research topic is related to renewable bioenergy recovery from organic waste treatment processes. The project entitled “Optimization of biological treatment processes for bioenergy recovery from organic wastes in cellulose-to-ethanol production processes” is a subproject of the integrated project entitled “Application of multidisciplinary biotechnology for bioenergy production from rice straw and Napiergrass”. The overall goal of this integrated project is to recover energy in the form of ethanol, hydrogen, and methane from genetic-modified crops including rice straw and Napiergrass, while this subproject is focusing on energy recovery in the form of hydrogen and methane gases when treating cellulosic-containing organic wastes produced in cellulose-to-ethanol production processes. Also within the topic related to bioenergy recovery, a breakthrough platform technology comprising multidisciplinary biotechnology is proposed in order to generate environmentally friendly bioenergy without CO2-essmision as illustrated in Figure 1. Figure 1 Conceptual demonstration of turning a hot Earth into a cooler and cleaner Earth through the proposed bioenergy system A-16