PARTICIPANTS UPB – CIRCLE Project

UNSTPB PARTICIPANTS

Constantin STRECHE

Utility Networks Service, University POLITEHNICA of Bucharest, Romania

Department of Energy Production and Use, Faculty of Energy Engineering, University POLITEHNICA of Bucharest, Romania

Between 2010 and 2013 he was PhD student in the framework of the Project co-funded by European Social Fund. Starting with 2012 to present he has done research activities in many projects in the field of environmental protection: “Multicriteria decision-making system for remediation of sites contaminated with toxic and persistent pollutants in large industrial areas”, / RECOLAND; «Reducing the environmental impact by optimizing the conversion chain for biogas energy recovery facilities in landfills» / REMOVED; Decision-making system for the management of sites contaminated with petroleum products based on the risk assessment for human health and the cost-benefit analysis” / REMPET; “Degradation of soil organic compounds by coupling methods of electrochemical and biological remediation” / ELBIOCOM; “Operational processes and systems for material and energy recovery of waste”, / PROVED.

He is engineer and researcher at University POLITEHNICA of Bucharest with expertise in environmental protection, sustainability and investigation, remediation, and monitoring of contaminated land to protect human health and the environment. His scientific activity includes more than 15 publications in conferences proceedings, ISI journals, and national and international journals.

Constantin STRECHE

Diana Mariana COCÂRȚĂ

B.Eng, M.Sc., Ph.D.

Diana Mariana COCÂRȚĂ; B.Eng, M.Sc., PhD.

Department of Energy Production and Use, Faculty of Energy Engineering, University POLITEHNICA of Bucharest, Romania

Diana M. Cocârță is currently an Associate Professor of Environmental Engineering at University POLITEHNICA of Bucharest (UPB) having served previously as senior researcher (2007-2012) and lecturer (2012-2018) at the Faculty of Energy Engineering from UPB. She received her B.S. in Environmental Engineering and M.S. in Energy Generation Environmental Impact from UPB (in 2003 and 2004, respectively), while her Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from University of Trento (UNITN), Italy and in Energy Engineering from University POLITEHNICA of Bucharest (Honors: Magna Cum Laude) in 2007. (PhD thesis: “Public Health Impact from Waste-to-Energy Plants”)D. M. Cocârță was a doctoral fellow at University of Trento, Italy, from 2003-2007. She habilitated in 2020 (Habilitation Thesis: “Energy, Environment and Health”).

Professor Cocârță is member in Scientific Committee of different national and international conferences and workshops. Her scientific activity includes more than 90 publications in conferences, national journals, IDB and ISI indexed journals; she has (co-) authored 11 books. Professor Cocârță managed as principal investigator 7 national and international projects and she developed 3 environmental informatics’ tools and registered it at the Romanian Copyright Office (ORDA). She is also the co-author of two patent requests.

Her research interests include environmental impact assessment, risk-based approach for the management of contaminated sites, remediation technologies, air pollution and waste management.

THE NAME OF ITU

One of the oldest technical universities in the world, has become identical with engineering and architecture education. ITU provides undergraduate education with 67 programs in 5 different campuses, 13 faculties, 1 conservatory, and graduate education in 7 institutes located in the center of Istanbul.

Being the architect of countless scientific and technological advances, ITU has succeeded many firsts. There are more than 400 laboratories and 17 research centers. ITU has the most ABET Accreditation in the world, with its 25 accredited engineering programs.

Students participating in the International Joint Degree Programs are entitled to double degrees by completing half of their education at partner universities in the USA. Offering double major and minor opportunities at many departments, ITU has the highest number of Erasmus exchange programs with nearly 1000 partnerships.

ITU is home to science-industry-technology with more than 2500 R&D projects carried out in ARI Teknokent. In addition, entrepreneurial students are supported with ITU Seed, also known as the “entrepreneurship ecosystem”.

The first cube satellite, the first electric minibus, the first hydrogen-powered boat, the first unmanned automobile, and the first domestic computer were manufactured at ITU. Besides, Turkey’s first television broadcast was aired from ITU, and the first university radio was founded by ITU.

ITU’s institutional history, intellectual memory and its esteemed environment builds a strong bridge from the past to the future. With its development in line with the requirements of the age, its innovative perspective and its structure that cares about establishing relations with the world; ITU is the university of yesterday, today and tomorrow.

Partners

Lăcrămioara Diana ROBESCU, B.Eng, M.Sc., PhD.

Department of Hydraulics, Hydraulic Machinery and Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Energy Engineering, University POLITEHNICA of Bucharest, ROMANİA

She received the integrated MSc. degree in Mechanical Engineering from University POLITEHNICA of Bucharest in 1991 and the PhD. degree in Energy Engineering from the same university in 2000 (PhD thesis: Theoretical and experimental contributions to oxygenation in biological wastewater treatment processes). She habilitated in 2016 (Habilitation thesis: Modeling and Simulation of Energy and Environmental processes).

In 1993 she joined University POLITEHNICA of Bucharest as a university assistant and she is currently full professor and the dean of the Faculty of Energy Engineering. She served previously as vice-dean (2012-2016) and as chair of Department of Hydraulics, Hydraulic Machinery and Environmental Engineering (2016 – 2020). She has appointed head of university’s Department for Quality Management in 2015 and responsible for study programmes quality assurance (2018-2020).

Her research interests focus on water and wastewater treatment, wastewater reuse, energy and resources recovery from wastewater, water supply, carbon and water footprint, multiphase fluid dynamics and hydraulic machinery.

She has been awarded more than € 1 million euros in 38 competitive research external grants, managing 16 of them as project manager or partner project manager.

She has participated in 15 national and international projects for institutional development for improving quality assurance, students’ skills, master and doctoral studies, and adult education in the framework of Sectorial Operational Programme – Development of Human Resources (POS DRU), Leonardo da Vinci, Tempus and Erasmus + being expert in 13 projects and project manager in 2 projects.

She was member in Scientific Committees of different national and international conferences and workshops. Her scientific and academic activity includes 10 technical books, 8 textbooks for students, three patents as well as more than 120 publications in national and international conference proceedings and journals.

Lăcrămioara Diana ROBESCU

B.Eng, M.Sc., Ph.D.

Marius Daniel BONTOȘ

B.Eng., M.Sc., Ph.D.

Marius Daniel BONTOȘ; B.Eng., M.Sc., PhD.

Department of Hydraulics, Hydraulics Machines and Environmental Protection, Faculty of Energy Engineering, University POLITEHNICA of Bucharest, Romania

Marius Daniel BONTOȘ is currently a Lecturer of Environmental Engineering at University POLITEHNICA of Bucharest (UPB) having served previously as researcher (2010-2012) at the Faculty of Energy Engineering from UPB.

He graduated (B.Eng.) in 2005 from the University POLITEHNICA of Bucharest (UPB), Faculty of Energy Engineering, with specialization in Environmental Engineering in Energy. In 2006 he received his MSc on “Impact of energy production and use on the environment”. Also, in 2011, he obtained the PhD degree in Energy Engineering. After PhD, he continued his post-doctoral studies (2013-2015) on the use of modern technologies for data acquisition, processing, simulation, and visualization in the field of Environment, Energy and Electrochemistry.

His expertise and research areas include Environmental Informatics, Health Impact Assessment of Air Pollution, Geographic Information Systems, Database Management Systems and SCADA Systems.

He is member in Scientific Committee of different national and international conferences and workshops, co-author of more than 2 books and 19 scientific papers indexed in Web of Science and other scientific databases, member in 10 national/ international projects and co-author of one national patent.

This project commits to empower new generations of professionals working in a circular transition with a socio-civic compromise. To that end, we establish the Circular & SOC Learning (CIRC.LE) Hub; a meeting point for students, professors, transdisciplinary experts, society at large, and decision-makers, working together with a circular and sociocivic compromise. In the Circular & SOC Learning Hub, students reflect on challenges by evaluating social and civic implications and become co-creators and active part of the challenge. This humanizing approach is here considered as the perfect complement to the technical skills for a true application of circularity principles. The CIRC.LE Hub creates a multi-stakeholder, participatory, democratic mutual learning and knowledge transfer platform and puts on the table complex dilemmas and “out of the box” ideas for students’ social and civic development and promoting local action and global thinking. This contributes to boosting the concept of the European Engineer. The pilot Circular & SOC Learning Hub will be promoted by the participating Universities and Associated Partners and then grow beyond this partnership.