Dr. Udai Pratap Singh is the Secretary General of the Asian Civil Engineering Coordinating Council (ACECC), consisting of 15 member countries, that promotes collaborative work towards sustainable development of infrastructure within the Asian region. He was the Vice President of CH2M HILL, one of the largest civil and environmental engineering firms, and did pioneering work in environmental engineering during his 40-year career there. He is the first Indian American to be elected nationally as the 2009-2010 President of American Society of Civil Engineers - Environmental & Water Resources Institute (ASCE-EWRI).
Dr. Singh received his bachelor's degree in civil engineering from IIT Kanpur in 1972, master's degree in water resources engineering from Clemson University, USA in 1974, and doctoral degree in environmental engineering from University of Florida, USA in 1978. He worked in various leadership positions in CH2M HILL in Florida and California from 1974 to 2014, with pioneering work on various state-of-the-art projects that contributed to CH2M HILL becoming the largest environmental firm in the consulting engineering industry.
Dr. Singh's research including pilot testing during the 1970's on the feasibility of deep well disposal of treated wastewater effluent resulted in the construction and operation of the largest deep well disposal facility in the world (in Miami, Florida) and had significant input into EPA's UIC policy development. The same technology was successfully pilot tested in USA and Europe in later decades to capture and store carbon dioxide in deep geological formations, as an option for mitigating global climate change. His extensive water quality modeling and computerized economic optimization during the 1970's and 1980's resulted in the determination of national needs for control of pollution from combined sewer overflow and urban stormwater runoff. Dr. Singh's work in the area of hazardous waste management started soon after the enactment of CERCLA (Superfund) in the early 1980's and continues till today. He has worked on hundreds of NPL (Superfund) sites, many of them complex and very large, for EPA across USA from remedial investigation to design and remediation. He has written a guidance document for conducting such work, which is being used by EPA and engineering companies. As a result of his pioneering work, his projects were among the first to move from the traditional "pump and treat" remedy to more innovative solutions such as in situ remediation. His projects were among the first to incorporate sustainability ("green remediation") into the investigation and remediation of Superfund sites.
Dr. Singh has published approximately 60 technical papers, authored 5 books, and edited 8 books in the areas of environmental and water resources engineering. After retiring from CH2M HILL in December 2014, he performs part-time consulting in environmental engineering and runs ACECC as its Secretary General, working with civil engineering leaders of its 15 member countries to promote sustainable infrastructure development in Asia.
Dr. Udai Pratap Singh is the recipient of the prestigious IITK Distinguished Alumnus Award, 2009.
