Dr. Elfrida Carstea is funded at the School of Civil Engineering under a Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship. Her project, entitled “Fluorescence-Based Optimisation of Sewage Treatment” – Fluoro-BOOST aims to provide a novel, rapid and robust means of assessing wastewater treatment works performance and, in particular, to optimize activated sludge process (ASP) performance and energy input, and to monitor final effluent quality. In order to achieve this aim, Elfrida will study the relationship between the fluorescence of sewage (crude, settled, ASP-treated and final effluent) and more traditional analytical techniques (e.g. biochemical oxygen demand, chemical oxygen demand and total organic carbon) at laboratory and full scales.