Shafiqul Islam Wins International Prize For Water Research

Shafiqul Islam Wins International Prize For Water Research

Press Release
11/03/2016

Professor Shafiqul Islam, of Tufts School of Engineering's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and professor of water diplomacy at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy was awarded the Creativity Award for the Prince Sultan Bin Abdulaziz International Prize for Water (PSIPW). The award, given to Islam and his team member Rita Colwell, University of Maryland at College Park, was given at ceremony held today at the United Nations headquarters in New York by the U.N. Friends of Water and presided over by the U.N. General Secretary H.E. Mr. Ban Ki-moon, and by PSIPW Chairman H.R.H. Prince Khaled Bin Sultan Bin Abdualziz.

Islam and Colwell received the Creativity Award for developing and testing a model that uses chlorophyll information from satellite data to predict cholera outbreaks at least three to six months in advance. Colwell and her team were the first to identify linkages between phytoplankton, zooplankton, and cholera. Islam applied Colwell's findings and related chlorophyll and phytoplankton information obtained from NASA satellites to develop cholera prediction models. Currently, the team is testing this satellite-based model with ground-based observations for different regions of the world.

Islam, who directs the Water Diplomacy program, received his Sc.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is also the co-director of the Boston Water Group, a diverse group of researchers and practitioners from academia, industry, and civil-society, who are based in the Greater Boston region, but who work across the United States and around the world to address problems that involve water.

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