Dr. Sudhir Murthy is Innovations Chief for DC Water and leads the development and implementation of the Authority’s innovation strategy. Sudhir creates, defines and translates research and development into product, service or revenue concepts. Sudhir led the concept development for several programs at the Blue Plains facility that has led to nearly $1 billion in engineering/construction.
These innovative projects were developed though novel approaches of public-public partnership with other water utilities, and through collaboration with private enterprise and universities. More than 60 MS and PhD students from universities in North America, Europe, Australia and Africa, and their academic advisors have been contributing to the planning effort with most of these students ‘insourced’ to research at DC Water in a multifunctional and interdisciplinary setting. This approach is now viewed as a model for collaborative engagement by universities and utilities. Similarly, Sudhir is working with private enterprise in developing new approaches for ‘co-innovation’ between the water technology supply and demand sectors.
In the past five years, DC Water has won four of five Research Grand Prizes from the American Academy of Environmental Engineers and Scientists. Sudhir is a Professional Engineer and a Board Certified Environmental Engineer and has received several Water Environment Federation awards including the Ralph Fuhrman Medal for Academia-Practitioner Collaboration, the George Gascoigne Medal for Wastewater Treatment Operational Improvement and the Camp Applied Research Award.
Sudhir has championed the development of internal innovation programs as a means to developing sustainable and resilient water utilities, and is the founding co-chair of the joint WEF/WE&RF utility program called LIFT – Leaders Innovation Forum for Technology with nearly 300 participating utilities. This program helps utilities with policies and approaches to drive innovation in the water sector. He was most recently selected to serve on the board of directors of the International Water Association.
Sudhir has a M.S. in Environmental Engineering and Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from Virginia Tech. He has over 100 peer review publications and over 250 publications or presentations.