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:
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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
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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.
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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
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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
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