Bill Anderson

Dr. William B. Anderson retired on January 1, 2025. He maintains a connection to the Water Science, Technology & Policy Research Group through an adjunct professorship to guide his remaining graduate students through to their degree completion. He was previously a Research Associate Professor and the Associate Director of the group. He has been active in drinking water quality and treatment research for over 45 years, more recently focusing on contaminant adsorption to microplastics, microplastic removal through chemically assisted filtration, pathogen removal, perfluorinated compounds, cyanobacteria and their toxins, and biological filtration. He has served on the Boards of Directors of the Ontario Water Works Association (OWWA) and the Walkerton Clean Water Centre and currently serves on the OWWA Advocacy Steering Committee and the Canadian Water and Wastewater Association Drinking Water Quality Committee. Please note that Dr. Anderson is no longer accepting graduate students.

• 2004, Doctorate Biology, University of Waterloo, Canada
• 1979, Bachelor's Microbiology, University of Regina, Canada

• 2006 American Water Works Association's second place 2006 Academic Achievement Award for best doctoral dissertation
• 2015 2015 AWWA Membrane Treatment Best Paper Award (Journal of the American Water Works Association) for “Pretreatment impacts on biopolymers in adjacent ultrafiltration plants” with Barbara Siembida-Lösch, Jane Bonsteel, and Peter M. Huck. The paper was selected “based on its impact on the water sector and the professional and editorial quality of the paper.” [106(9): E372-E382]

• de Brito Cruz D., Brown T.J., Jin C., Kundert K.L., Ruecker N.J., Ballantyne L., Schmidt P.J., Anderson W.B., and Emelko M.B., Filter operation effects on plant-scale microbial risk: Opportunities for enhanced treatment performance, AWWA Water Science, Volume 5, Canada, 2023.
• Blackburn E.A.J., Dickson-Anderson S.E., Anderson W.B., and Emelko M.B., Biological Filtration is Resilient to Wildfire Ash-Associated Organic Carbon Threats to Drinking Water Treatment, ACS ES and T Water, Volume 3, 639-649, Canada, 2023.
• Aly S.A., Anderson W.B., and Huck P.M., In-line coagulation assessment for ultrafiltration fouling reduction to treat secondary effluent for water reuse, Water Science and Technology, Volume 83, 284-296, Canada, 2021.
• Rahman M.F., Mahmud M.J., Sadmani A.H.M.A., Chowdhury A.I., Anderson W.B., Bodruzzaman A.B.M., and Huq S., Previously unrecognized potential threat to children from manganese in groundwater in rohingya refugee camps in Cox's Bazar, Ban, Chemosphere, Volume 127, United Kingdom, 2021.
• Scott D.B., Van Dyke M.I., Anderson W.B., King P.W., and Huck P.M., Batch test to evaluate microbial disinfectant decay and the onset of nitrification, Aqua Water Infrastructure, Ecosystems and Society, Volume 70, Canada, 2021.
• Chik A.H.S., Emelko M.B., Anderson W.B., O'Sullivan K.E., Savio D., Farnleitner A.H., Blaschke A.P., and Schijven J.F., Evaluation of groundwater bacterial community composition to inform waterborne pathogen vulnerability assessments, Science of the Total Environment, Volume 127, Austria, 2020.
• Schmidt P.J., Anderson W.B., and Emelko M.B., Reply to Comment on “Describing water treatment process performance: Why average log-reduction can be a misleading statisticâ€, Water Research, Volume 127, Canada, 2020.
• Schmidt P.J., Anderson W.B., and Emelko M.B., Describing water treatment process performance: Why average log-reduction can be a misleading statistic, Water Research, Volume 127, Canada, 2020.
• Vlad S., Peldszus S., Anderson W.B., and Huck P.M., Anatoxin-a adsorption by virgin and preloaded granular activated carbon, AWWA Water Science, Volume 1, Canada, 2019.
• Aly S.A., Anderson W.B., and Huck P.M., Biological filtration with and without prior in-line coagulation to reduce uf fouling by secondary effluent, Journal of Water Reuse and Desalination, Volume 8, 176-191, Egypt, 2018.