This month, Lindell Ormsbee, Ph.D., professor in the UK Pigman College of Engineering Department of Civil Engineering, was honored for his decades of dedication with an Environmental and Water Resources Institute (EWRI) lifetime achievement award at the EWRI Congress in Anchorage, Alaska.
Ormsbee, an Earl Parker Robinson Chair for Sustainability and the Environment, has dedicated decades to civil engineering education and research. In his over 40-year career he has served in various research administration roles, including the founding director of the Tracy Farmer Center for the Environment, the director of the Kentucky Watershed Management Program and the associate director of the UK Superfund Research Center. He has also served on several Kentucky environmental committees including the chair of the Kentucky Environmental Quality Commission and the chair of the Kentucky governor’s subcommittee on nuclear energy.
From 2002 to 2010, Ormsbee served as director of the Kentucky Research Consortium for Energy and Environment which provided research and technical support associated with cleanup efforts at one of the Department of Energy’s largest facilities, the Paducah Uranium Gaseous Diffusion Plant. This work ultimately led to numerous technical reports and papers, and a collaboration with D.B. Bhattacharyya, Ph.D., which resulted in the development of functionalized membrane technologies for water treatment and a U.S. patent.
Ormsbee was director of the Kentucky Water Research Institute from 2004 to 2022. While serving as director, he forged a close relationship with the Kentucky Cabinet for Energy and Environment to assist in developing their watershed monitoring and management program and to help failing water and wastewater systems in the Appalachian region of Kentucky—work that continues to this day. Most recently, he coordinated an effort to revamp the training and testing materials for use in certifying all water and wastewater operators in the state of Kentucky. In addition to his normal academic responsibilities, he continues to teach and train water and wastewater operators across the state.
After starting his academic career at UK in 1983, Ormsbee embarked on a long-term collaboration with former UK civil engineering professor, Don Wood, which resulted in the translation of water distribution research into commercial software (i.e., KYPIPE) applications. He has now taught hundreds of classes, workshops, and short courses dealing with water distribution system operations, ultimately training thousands of students, operators, and engineers. These efforts have led to the application of water distribution system research to several hundred water distribution systems both in the U.S. and around the world.
Ormsbee’s past research efforts have focused on the application of systems analysis methods to complex problems in water resources and environmental systems with a particular focus on water distribution, watershed management, water treatment and stakeholder engagement. His research has resulted in several hundred journal publications, proceeding papers and technical reports that have been cited over 5,000 times.
Ormsbee a licensed professional engineer in the state of Kentucky, a licensed professional hydrologist with the American Institute of Hydrology and a board-certified expert in water resources engineering with the American Academy of Water Resource Engineers. He is also a fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and a fellow of the Environment and Water Resources Institute. He has received ASCE awards, including the ASCE Service to the Profession Award, the Robert Gilliam Award and the Julian Hinds Award.
The EWRI is a technical institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers, and its lifetime achievement award is presented to members who have advanced the profession, exhibited technical competence, and significantly contributed to public service, research, or practice in the environmental and water resources profession.
