Dr. Sanchez is responsible for building research and scholarly initiatives around Sustainable Water, Sustainable Food, Sustainable Innovation, and Global Engagement. Dr. Sanchez is also responsible for managing and directing MCSI’s Faculty, Education, and Community Engagement programs, which include the John C. Mascaro Faculty program, the Len Peters Faculty Fellows, the Community Education Fellows, the Master’s in Sustainable Engineering, the university-wide undergraduate certificate in sustainability and the Student Sustainable Innovation Fund. Dr. Sanchez continues to expand our network of positive working relationships with faculty, administration, students, and external partners (e.g. NGOs, Government agencies, Startups, and Fortune 500 companies) that support our broad education and research agenda. He also oversees the undergraduate and graduate sustainability curriculum and our K-12 programming.
David V.P. Sanchez is an Assistant Professor in the
University of Pittsburgh’s Civil & Environmental Engineering department and
serves as the Associate Director for the Mascaro Center for Sustainable
Innovation. He coordinates the Design EXPO
that showcases 90+ projects from ~400 students every semester and serves as the
Director for the Manufacturing Assistant Center’s Makerspace, Constellation
Energy’s Inventor Labs, the Series Workshops and some engineering
collaborations in the community of Homewood.
His research is focused on identifying sustainable designs
that address the Water and Energy grand challenges in the natural and built
environment on a local/regional scale. Current projects include engineering
electrode morphology for bio-electrochemical systems, designing sensors to
identify water quality trends in real-time and, developing hydroponic systems
for the phytoremediation of PFAS, removing off-flavors from Recirculating
Aquaponic systems, and enhancing community agricultural systems.
Dr. Sanchez is the recipient of several awards including a
National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, IGERT Traineeship,
Alfred P. Sloan Scholarship, Pittsburgh Business Time Energy Award, Best Mentor Award for Pitt’s Excel program, Chancellor's Distinguished Teaching Award, and the Soska Wilds Outreach and Engagement Leadership award. David actively leads international
engineering trips on behalf of the Swanson School of Engineering.