Agilent and Georgia Tech launch Center of Excellence for environmental health and water research

New U.S.-based center to focus on sustainable water recycling, resource recovery, and rapid toxicity analysis.

Agilent Technologies and the Georgia Institute of Technology have announced the creation of a new Center of Excellence (CoE) focused on environmental health and engineering.

The center, based at Georgia Tech and led by Professor Shane Snyder, will support applied research into water recycling, environmental safety, and sustainable waste processing.

Agilent is a global provider of analytical instrumentation and lab technologies. The company will supply advanced tools, including cell analysis systems and mass spectrometry instruments, to support the center’s work on environmental contaminant evaluation and toxicology.

Research priorities and leadership

The CoE will focus on four core areas: new technologies for municipal and industrial water recycling, waste upcycling and resource recovery, cell-based environmental mixture testing, and workforce development for sustainability research.

Professor Snyder, who holds the José Domingo Pérez Foundation Chair in Georgia Tech’s School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, will lead the center. He previously held senior positions at Nanyang Technological University and the Nanyang Environment and Water Research Institute in Singapore.

“This partnership with Agilent enables us to push the boundaries of environmental research,” says Snyder. “With access to state-of-the-art instrumentation and Agilent’s scientific expertise, we will accelerate discoveries that address some of the world’s most pressing sustainability challenges.”

The new center is Agilent’s third in the United States and its only site dedicated to environmental contaminant testing and toxicity measurement. It is also the first of Agilent’s centers to focus on cell-based analysis of complex chemical mixtures in environmental systems.

Padraig McDonnell, CEO of Agilent, says, “Agilent is excited to collaborate with Professor Snyder and Georgia Tech on this Center of Excellence. This partnership illustrates Agilent’s objective to empower academic researchers with the tools and support they need to drive meaningful scientific progress—especially in the critical area of environmental health and safety.”