William Tarpeh
Chemical engineer
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
William A. Tarpeh is an Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering at Stanford University.[1] Tarpeh is a 2025 MacArthur Fellow.[2][3] Tarpeh's research is centered around recovering valuable resources from wastewater. He is a fellow of the Stanford Precourt Institute for Energy and the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment.[4]
William A. Tarpeh | |
|---|---|
Tarpeh in 2025 | |
| Education | Stanford University University of California, Berkeley |
| Awards | MacArthur Fellowship |
| Scientific career | |
| Workplaces | Stanford University |
| Kara Nelson | |
| Website | https://cheme.stanford.edu/people/william-tarpeh |
Education
Tarpeh obtained his BS in chemical engineering at Stanford University in 2012 (minoring in African Studies[5]), and his MS and PhD in environmental engineering at University of California, Berkeley (in 2013 and 2017, respectively).[6] He was a Ron Brown Scholar (2008)[7] and a 28twelve Foundation Fellow (2014).[8] Tarpeh conducted postdoctoral research at the University of Michigan.[9]
Tarpeh attended Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Fairfax, Virginia.[10]
Honors
In 2023, Tarpeh was named among "AIChE’s 35 Under 35"[11] and the "2023 Rising Stars in Environmental Research" by ACS Environmental Au,[12] and in 2018 among the "Forbes 30 under 30 - Science".[13][14] In 2016, Tarpeh was named by NBC in its NBCBLK28, as one of 28 African American innovators under the age of 28.[15][16] Tarpeh is a Cooke Young Scholar and College Scholar of the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation,[17] and he received the foundation's 2020 Quinn Prize.[10][18] Tarpeh also won Jeopardy Kids Week at the age of twelve.[19]
In 2025, Tarpeh earned a MacArthur Fellowship.[2][3][20] Previously, he received a 2024 National Science Foundation CAREER Award,[21] a 2022 Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award,[22] and the 2023 Paul L. Busch Award, a $100,000 research prize presented by the Water Research Foundation.[23]
In 2024, Tarpeh gave a talk at the 2024 Stanford Reunion Homecoming.[24]
Research
Tarpeh conducts research in global sanitation in the field of development engineering,[25] to recover resources from wastewater,[14] turning waste chemicals into products such as fertilizers and disinfectants and cleaning the water in the process.[26] During his PhD work, he developed a method for creating fertilizer by extracting nitrogen from urine and combining it with water.[14] Tarpeh continues to engineer new chemical processes to extract nutrients from urine and is considered a burgeoning leader in his field.[27]
Tarpeh's projects include ammonia recovery from wastewater, as well as the removal of lithium from spent batteries and its reuse.[4] He develops resource recovery technologies to recycle nitrogen, sulfur, and phosphorus with minimal infrastructure and energy.[28] Tarpeh leads pilot projects in Kenya and California, in an effort to transform how communities deal with pollution, fertilizer shortages, and climate change.[29]
Tarpeh's work has been featured in short videos by the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation,[30] Interesting Engineering,[31] and the University of California, Berkeley.[32]