Dr Ruth Margaret Fisher

Senior Lecturer in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Ruth is currently a Senior lecturer in Environmental Engineering and Sustainability in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering. She is an Education Focused Academic and is keen to inspire students about sustainability, environmental engineering and the positive impacts they can have on the world. 

Ruth completed her PhD in 2018, investigating the emission of odours from biosolids processing in wastewater treatment plants. She is interested in improving the sustainability and performance of waste management systems, such as wastewater treatment. She is a member of the Odour Laboratory and her research was funded through the CRC for Low Carbon Living project RP2008 Beneficial Reuse of Biosolids project.

Her background as a chemical engineer supports her systems thinking approaches to solving odour emissions. Previous to her life at UNSW Sydney, Ruth worked at CSIRO on a number of projects on membranes for water treatment and industrial vent gas treatment. These projects introduced her to research and identifying opportunities for industry collaborations.  Working closely with industry partners such as Sydney Water, Hunter Water, and Suez opened the door for shared learning and greater impact of research outcomes. She is keen to look more broadly at the world especially in how sustainability and odour emissions are linked to waste management. “As engineers we need to take a step back and look at the interactions between systems, for example, when treating an odour we need to make sure we don’t shift the burden from one area or phase to another”.