Welcome to the Rowles Research Group! We are in the Department of Civil Engineering and Construction at Georgia Southern University in Statesboro, GA. Our mission is to advance innovative water and environmental technologies that address real-world challenges. We focus on developing sustainable engineering solutions through research at the intersection of technology development and practical implementation.
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May 2025: Fatima Iqbal successfully defended her MS thesis on digital twins for industrial wastewater treatment optimization. Her innovative approach combines computational modeling with sustainability assessment to help facilities meet both environmental compliance and sustainability goals. Congratulations Fatima!
April 2025: The Georgia Environmental Protection Division awarded funding for our project "Charting Synergistic Pathways for Increased Water Efficiency in Coastal Georgia," a collaborative effort with Dr. Stetson Rowles, Dr. Jayce Sudweeks, and Dr. Francisco Cubas. This interdisciplinary team will engage stakeholders across industry, agriculture, and municipal sectors to identify and implement innovative water conservation and reuse strategies tailored to coastal Georgia's unique challenges.
April 2025: Our research team secured funding from the Department of Defense Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program. PI Dr. Rocio Perez leads this collaborative project with Co-PIs Dr. Jianzhou He and Dr. Stetson Rowles. The project, titled "Ionic Liquids: A Green Method to Separate Fluoropolymers from Polymer-Metal Composites," brings together expertise in materials science and environmental engineering.
March 2025: Fatima Iqbal presented her work on affordable surface water phosphorus monitoring through sensor networks at the Georgia Water Resources Conference in Athens. The presentation showcased our lab's continuing work on democratizing water quality monitoring technologies.
March 2025: Fatemeh Naeijian presented her innovative research on shell-based phosphate recovery technologies at the ACS Spring Meeting in New Orleans. Her presentation highlighted a comprehensive sustainability framework for evaluating these promising resource recovery approaches. This work is a collaboration with South East Technological University in Ireland.
February 2025: Our collaborative paper on low-cost water quality monitoring systems was published in Environmental Science: Advances. "Aquatic quality watch informed by communities (AQWIC)" provides a comprehensive review and tutorial on implementing affordable sensor networks in underserved communities, building on our work with partners in Colombia.
December 2024: Md. Nizam Uddin successfully defended his MS thesis on anaerobic co-digestion of industrial sludge and food waste. His research demonstrated how strategic co-digestion can enhance biogas production while diverting waste from landfills. Congratulations to Nizam on this achievement!
Sept 2025: Md. Moshiur Rahman Tushar's research on sustainable PFAS treatment approaches was published in npj Clean Water. The study, titled "Balancing sustainability goals and treatment efficacy for PFAS removal from water," evaluates various treatment technologies through a comprehensive sustainability framework that considers both environmental impacts and removal efficiency. It is a collaborative paper with Dr. Nirupam Aich at Univeristy of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Aug 2024: Md. Moshiur Rahman Tushar was selected as a recipient of the Environmental Research & Education Foundation Scholarship Award.
July 2024: Fatemeh Naeijian was selected as a Georgia Southern University Presidential Research Fellow. This prestigious designation provides funding for her PhD in Engineering.
July 2024: Bright Elijah's MS work was published in ACS Environmental Au. This work was a collaborative effort with researchers from Rutgers and Universidad de los Andes. Read more here:
June 2024: Maria Guerra, Melisa Arbelaez, Farith Diaz, and Maria Gutierrez are visiting researchers from Universidad EIA working with Profs Stetson Rowles and Francisco Cubas as part of a one-month exchange sponsored by 100k Strong in the Americas.
May 2024: Stetson Rowles with a group from GSU traveled to Wexford, Ireland to help build research collaborations with South East Technological University.
May 2024: Fatima Iqbal presented her research at the 2024 World Environmental & Water Resources Congress in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
May 2024: Mikko Westerbeke, Jamie Torres, Francisco Cubas, and Stetson Rowles traveled to Colombia as part of their collaborative project sponsored by 100k Strong in the Americas to develop low-cost water quality sensor systems.
April 2024: Mikko Westerbeke, Jamie Torres, Sutton Page, Nizam Uddin, Emma Murray, Cassidy Hartog, Moshiur Tushar, Sachin Dunn, Fatima Iqbal, and Fatehem Naeijian presented their research at the Allen E. Paulson College of Engineering and Computing Student Research Symposium. Several of them won awards for their research. Congratulations!
April 2024: Fatehem Naeijian, Fatima Iqbal, Jamie Torres, Sutton Page, and Mikko Westerbeke presented their research at the Georgia Southern University Research Symposium.
April 2024: Merri Minshew and Emma Murray both defended their Honor's Theses. The title of Merri's Thesis was "Navigating the Relationships among Food Waste Practices, Environmental Intentions, and Sustainability Knowledge of Students", and the title of Emma's Thesis was "Optimizing Anaerobic Digestion of Food Waste and Industrial Sludge for Biogas Production".
Aug 2023: Matías Osuna Estrada, Osely Perea Moreno, and Keiner S. Sánchez Hurtado are visiting researchers from Universidad EIA and Universidad Tecnológica del Chocó working with Profs Stetson Rowles and Francisco Cubas as part of a one-month exchange sponsored by 100k Strong in the Americas.
June 2023: Bright Elijah, Cassidy Hartog, Stetson Rowles, and Nizam Uddin presented their research at the Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors (AEESP) Research and Education Conference. Bright was awarded the Student Poster Award. Congratulations!
May 2023: Bright Elijah (MS), Josiah Hacker (BS), and Hannah Walden (BS) graduated at the Spring Commencement Ceremony. Congratulations!
May 2023: The Rowles Research Group celebrated the end of the semester with a pizza party.
April 2023: Nizam Uddin, Emma Murray, Cassidy Hartog, Josiah Hacker, Hannah Walden, Astana Woody, and Fatima Iqbal presented their research at the Georgia Southern University Research Symposium 2023 and the Allen E. Paulson College of Engineering and Computing Student Research Symposium.
March 2023: Josiah Hacker presented his research at the Southern Regional Honors Council in Charlotte, North Carolina.
March 2023: Astana Woody and Bright Elijah presented their research at the Georgia Water Resources Conference in Athens, GA.
March 2023: Bright Elijah sucessfully defended his MS Thesis. The title of his thesis is "Accessing the relative sustainability of point-of-use water disinfection technologies through cost and environmental impact". Congratulations Bright on being the first MS student from the group!
Feb 2023: Dr. Stetson Rowles attend a ceremony hosted by The US Embassy in Bogota, Colombia to kickoff a project in collaboration with Profs. Farith Diaz, Nazly Rubio, and Francisco Cubas. This project facilitates a research exchange on water sensors for students from Universidad EIA, Chocó, and Georgia Southern University. This project is funded by 100k Strong in the Americas. Learn more about this project here.
Jan 2023: Fatima Iqbal and Nizam Uddin have joined the group to pursue their MS degrees with a focus in Environmental Engineering.
Jan 2023: A research team led by Dr. Stetson Rowles has been awarded an industry-funded project to help the company navigate compliance requirements and achieve sustainability goals. The team also includes Dr. Francisco Cubas (Associate Professor in Civil Engineering and Construction) and Dr. George Fu (Professor in Civil Engineering and Construction). This project will help to develop a digital twin for effluent treatment facilities.
Dec 2022: Ethan Rhine graduated with his BS in Civil Engineering.
Dec 2022: The group celebrated the end of the semester with a pizza dinner.
Sept 2022: Bright Elijah presented his research at the University of Oklahoma International WaTER Conference.
Aug 2022: A research team led by Dr. Stetson Rowles has been awarded $200,000 from U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to help tackle the climate crisis through food diversion. This initiative aims to divert food waste from landfills by expanding anaerobic digester capacity nationwide. The interdisciplinary team includes Dr. Francisco Cubas (Associate Professor in Civil Engineering and Construction) and Dr. Asli Aslan (Associate Professor in Environmental Health Sciences and Director of the Institute for Water and Health). The team will conduct a feasibility study to advance the understanding of how existing anaerobic digestion capacity at pulp and paper mills can be sustainably leveraged for the treatment of food waste from university campuses. This research will integrate experimentation, quantitative sustainable design, and community-engaged research. This framework will be used to demonstrate how food waste can be diverted from landfills, while potentially providing paper mills with the opportunity to enrich their sludge for better digestion and increased biogas production.
May 2022: The group celebrated the end of the semester with laser tag and go cart racing.
April 2022: Josiah Hacker, Tasnuva Farnaz, and Bright Elijah presented their research at the Allen E. Paulson College of Engineering and Computing Student Research Symposium.
Aug 2021: Bright started pursuing his MS with a focus in Environmental Engineering.
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