Professor Catherine Biggs

Prof Catherine Biggs

BEng (Hons), PhD, AMIChemE, MRSC

Professor of Environmental Engineering
Director of Marketing and Recruitment

Tel: +44 (0)114 222 7510
Fax: +44 (0)114 222 7501

Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering
The University of Sheffield
Sir Robert Hadfield Building
Mappin Street
Sheffield
S1 3JD

Research interests

Biography

My current and future research vision is study biological processes within the urban environment using a multidisciplinary framework that integrates fundamental studies of biological processes, with engineering knowledge, to help address industry and community needs

1. Biofilms – using a multidisciplinary approach for characterisation and control.
2. Microbiology in urban water systems – who is there, what are they doing, what is the engineering impact?
3. Environmental proteomics – studying the microbial response to stresses in the natural and urban environment
4. Synthetic biology and the water industry – what is feasible?

I graduated from the Department of Chemical Engineering at The University of Queensland in Brisbane Australia with a PhD in Flocculation Processes in Biological Wastewater Treatment and a First Class Honours Degree in Environmental Engineering.

I joined the Department of Chemical and Process Engineering at The University of Sheffield in June 2000 as a Postdoctoral Researcher with the Particle Products Group.

In November 2001 I took up the post of Lecturer, and later senior lecturer and Reader in Biochemical Engineering at the University of Sheffield. In 2007 I was awarded an Advanced Research Fellowship.

In 2010 I was appointed a Professor of Environmental Engineering.

Teaching

Senate Award for Excellence in Learning and Teaching.

News

Bacteria in drinking water are key to keeping it clean

Links:

Papers and Presentations

Pennine Water Group

Key Papers

Karunakaran E., Mukherjee J., Ramalingan B., Biggs C.A. (2011) "Biofilmology": A multidisciplinary review of the study of microbial biofilms Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology (accepted)

Mukherjee J., Ow S.Y., Noirel J. Biggs C.A. (2011) Quantitative protein expression and cell surface characteristics of Escherichia coli MG1655 biofilms Proteomics 11(3): 339-51.

Deines P., Sekar R., Jensen H.S., Tait S., Boxall J.B., Osborn A.M., Biggs C.A. (2010) MUWS (Microbiology in Urban Water Systems) – An interdisciplinary approach to study microbial communities in urban water systems Drinking water engineering and science discussions 3, 91-99.

Pandhal J., Ow S.Y., Wright P.C., Biggs C.A (2009). A comparative proteomics study of salt tolerance between a non-sequenced extremely halotolerant cyanobacterium and its mildly halotolerant relative using in vivo metabolic labelling and in vitro isobaric labelling Journal of Proteome Research 8 (2), pp 818–828.