Dr. Wayne Parker is a Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Waterloo. His research specializes in enhancing wastewater treatment and sludge handling processes, with the goal of increasing the sustainability of wastewater management. His contributions to the field have been recognized with numerous awards, including the Water Environment Association of Ontario’s Exemplary Biosolids Management Award, the Province of Ontario’s Premier’s Research Excellence Award, and the Water Environment Federation Willem Rudolfs Medal for Industrial Wastewater Research.
Wayne is a member of the Microplastics Fingerprinting project, a multidisciplinary initiative involving over 30 team members, including faculty, graduate students, and support staff. The team’s diverse expertise brings a holistic perspective to tackling the complex challenges of plastic pollution.
Within the project, Professor Parker has been instrumental in developing advanced techniques to quantify microplastics in municipal wastewater treatment systems. Collaborating with former PhD student Frank Zhu, Parker co-developed PlasticNet, an AI tool that significantly improves the speed and accuracy of identifying microplastics in wastewater and sludge samples. PlasticNet was further integrated with software to measure microplastic dimensions, enabling precise mass estimates of microplastics in samples. Recognizing the uncertainty introduced by multiple pre-treatment steps required to isolate microplastics from matrices like wastewater and sludge, Parker’s team conducted a probabilistic analysis to pinpoint key sources of uncertainty and evaluate strategies to mitigate the variability. These efforts culminated in a field sampling campaign at a local wastewater treatment plant, demonstrating that differential recovery corrections improved the accuracy of microplastics mass balances.
With over 35 years of experience in wastewater treatment and residuals management, Professor Parker has consistently addressed the fate of micropollutants in wastewater, with microplastics presenting a novel and complex challenge. This new focus has required mastering new analytical techniques, rethinking pollutant transport and fate mechanisms, and fostering collaborations with experts in Systems Design Engineering, Earth Sciences, and Chemistry.
Professor Parker’s dedication to advancing sustainable wastewater management underscores his pivotal role in addressing environmental challenges and supporting innovative solutions for a healthy and more sustainable future.