William Tarpeh

William A. Tarpeh
Tarpeh in 2025
EducationStanford University
University of California, Berkeley
AwardsMacArthur Fellowship
Scientific career
InstitutionsStanford University
Doctoral advisorKara Nelson
Websitehttps://cheme.stanford.edu/people/william-tarpeh

William A. Tarpeh is an Assistant 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]

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 reusal.[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]

References

  1. ^ "William A. Tarpeh - Chemical Engineering". Engineering, Stanford University. Retrieved 2019-03-03.
  2. ^ a b "William Tarpeh, Chemical Engineer, 2025". MacArthur Foundation. Retrieved 2025-10-10.
  3. ^ a b "MacArthur Foundation Announces 2025 'Genius Grant' Winners". The New York Times. 8 October 2025. Retrieved 2025-10-10.
  4. ^ a b Chrobak, Ula (October 9, 2025). "William Tarpeh receives MacArthur Fellowship". Stanford University. Retrieved 2025-10-10.
  5. ^ "National Academies: New Heroes - William Tarpeh". Retrieved 2025-11-19.
  6. ^ "William Tarpeh - Stanford Profile". Stanford Profiles. Retrieved 2019-03-03.
  7. ^ "2008, William A. Tarpeh, PhD". Ron Brown Scholar Program. Retrieved 2025-10-10.
  8. ^ "PhD, William Tarpeh". Retrieved 2025-10-10.
  9. ^ Roberts, Tara (October 23, 2024). "William Tarpeh: Creativity leads to innovative wastewater transformations". Stanford University School of Engineering. Retrieved 2025-10-10.
  10. ^ a b Karwoski, Laura (October 9, 2025). "Cooke Alum William Tarpeh Awarded 2025 MacArthur Fellowship". Jack Kent Cooke Foundation. Retrieved 2025-10-10.
  11. ^ "AIChE's 35 Under 35: This Year's Young Trailblazers". American Institute of Chemical Engineers. October 2023. Retrieved 2025-10-10.
  12. ^ Cousins, Ian T.; Hornbuckle, Keri C.; Li, Xiang-Dong (March 1, 2024). "ACS Environmental Au Recognizes 2023 Rising Stars in Environmental Research". ACS Environmental Au. 4 (2). ACS Environmental Au, American Chemical Society: 51–53. Bibcode:2024ACSEA...4...51C. doi:10.1021/acsenvironau.4c00010. PMC 10958652. PMID 38525022.
  13. ^ "Alumnus William Tarpeh named among Forbes 30 under 30 for 2018". Civil and Environmental Engineering, UC Berkeley. Retrieved 2019-03-03.
  14. ^ a b c "William Tarpeh - Forbes 30 under 30 - Science 2019". Forbes. Retrieved 2019-03-03.
  15. ^ "NBCBLK28: William Tarpeh: Putting a New Spin on Reuse and Recycle". NBC News. 22 February 2016. Retrieved 2019-03-03.
  16. ^ "Introducing the NBCBLK28". NBC News. February 2016. Retrieved 2019-03-03.
  17. ^ "Jack Kent Cooke Foundation Scholar - William Tarpeh". Jack Kent Cooke Foundation. 22 June 2018. Retrieved 2025-10-10.
  18. ^ William Tarpeh - 2020 Quinn Prize Recipient on YouTube
  19. ^ "Sandburg Student in Jeopardy — the Television Show". www.connectionnewspapers.com. Retrieved 2019-03-21.
  20. ^ Walsh, Elizabeth (October 10, 2025). "Chemical engineer and structural biologist among 2025 MacArthur Fellows". Chemical & Engineering News. Retrieved 2025-10-10.
  21. ^ "Congratulations to William Tarpeh: 2024 recipient of the NSF CAREER Award". Stanford University. February 13, 2024. Retrieved 2025-10-10.
  22. ^ "2022 Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Awards". The Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation. May 5, 2022. Retrieved 2025-10-10.
  23. ^ "WRF Presents $100K Research Award To Advance Wastewater Resource Recovery". October 11, 2023. Retrieved 2025-10-10.
  24. ^ Chrobak, Ula (December 9, 2024). "William Tarpeh is turning wastewater into critical resources". Stanford University School of Engineering. Retrieved 2025-10-10.
  25. ^ ""Imagining the Future Helps Us Engineer Toward that Future": A Q&A with Will Tarpeh". Blum Center for Developing Economies, The University of California, Berkeley. 11 February 2019. Retrieved 2019-03-06.
  26. ^ "Can we recover valuable chemicals from sewage?". Stanford Earth, Stanford University. 26 February 2019. Retrieved 2019-03-06.
  27. ^ Myers, Andrew (2019-02-26). "Can we recover valuable chemicals from sewage?". Stanford Earth. Retrieved 2025-10-10.
  28. ^ "William Tarpeh awarded MacArthur 'genius' fellowship". UC Berkeley College of Engineering. October 8, 2025. Retrieved 2025-10-10.
  29. ^ Courquet-Lesaulnier, Liz (October 8, 2025). "Meet the 5 MacArthur 'Geniuses' Making the Future Black and Brilliant". Retrieved 2025-10-10.
  30. ^ "NBC News Honors Cooke Scholar William Tarpeh". Jack Kent Cooke Foundation. 2016-02-22. Retrieved 2025-10-10.
  31. ^ PhD Student Engineered a Way to Change Pee into Fertilizer, retrieved 2019-03-21
  32. ^ UC Berkeley (2015-11-16), Berkeley student turns urine into fertilizer to feed the world, retrieved 2019-03-21
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