Prof. Stefan Wuertz obtained B.Sc. in Microbiology at the National University of Ireland, Galway, before embarking on an interdisciplinary PhD in Environmental Sciences with Joe Cooney at the University of Massachusetts in the U.S. He did his post-doc in molecular biology on heavy metal resistance in bacteria in the laboratory of Max Mergeay at VITO in Belgium, in collaboration with Daniel van der Lelie and Jean-Marc Collard. During that time, he was a recipient of an EU postdoctoral scholarship. Next, he moved back to Germany and began working on public health and engineering-related research questions at Technical University Munich. In 2001, he obtained his Dr. habil. In Environmental Biotechnology and accepted a faculty position in Environmental Engineering at the University of California, Davis. In 2011, Stefan co-founded the Singapore Centre of Environmental Life Sciences Engineering at Nanyang Technological University and the National University of Singapore with Staffan Kjelleberg, Stephan Schuster, Mike Givskov and colleagues. Since 2016 he is a full-time Professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Nanyang Technological University. Prof. Stefan Wuertz's research focuses on the structure and function of microbial communities in engineered treatment systems and the molecular detection of pathogens in the environment. He is establishing scale-up engineering bioprocess systems and investigating environmental solutions to create novel and multi-scale interactive engineering platforms for multiple purposes, such as the recovery of nutrients from used water by biofilm processes.