He has been for more than 24 years Full Professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison; Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Materials Science Program and Professor and Chair of Environmental Chemistry and Technology Program. Since June 2008 he is acting as Advisor and Principal Researcher of the Electrochemical Processes Unit at IMDEA Energy with special emphasis on energy storage for renewable energy systems and applications to energy efficient water desalination.
He got his PhD at Johns Hopkins University in 1974. He had sabbatical leaves as visiting professor at the Institute of Ceramics and Glass CSIC – Madrid, Spain (1988-1989) and Université Catholique – Louvain, Belgium (1980-1981). Current research topics and key qualifications are: ceramic membranes; microporous ceramic materials; colloidal thin-film ceramics; colloid chemistry; catalysis, gas and liquid ceramic membrane separation processes; adsorption in aqueous systems; photocatalysis; photoelectrochemistry; batteries; ultra-capacitors and fuel cells.
Regarding his contribution to the Electrochemical Unit of IMDEA Energy Institute he is in charge of the development of nanoporous materials from sol-gel chemistry as well as collecting the necessary know-how concerning the transport of both electrons and ions that dictate the performance of battery and ultracapacitor systems. He is also developing energy efficient materials and devices and novel methods of regeneration for water desalination processes based on nano-structured materials applied to Capacitive Deionization (CD) or electro-sorption. Over his career in academia, Professor Anderson’s Research projects has been funded by National Science Foundation, Environmental Protection Agency, Sea Grant, NASA, Department of Energy, Department of Defense and the Office of Naval Research. Private funding has come from both large such as Air Products, Kimberly Clark, and RayOVac corporations and smaller companies. Currently, he has projects that include Annheuser Bush, Gusmer Industries, Cardinal Glass, Regal Ware and WCR.
He has published around 180 papers in peer-reviewed journals, with a historical Hirsch index of 48, and is author of 27 patents. He has presented more than 100 communications in national and international conferences, about 40 of them being invited talks or keynotes. He has completed research stages at CIEMAT (Spain), Institute of Ceramics and Glass-CSIC (Spain), Université Catholique of Louvain (Belgium). He has been honored with the Byron Bird “Best Paper in Engineering Award” by UW-Madison; Fulbright Fellow; Alumni of the Year by UW-Whitewater; Outstanding Paper Award by AICHE; Phoebe Apperson Hearst Distinguished Lecturer by UC-Berkeley; and Graduated with distinction (cum laude) by UW-Whitewater.
