Rate My Professor Gilda Carvalho

Associate Professor Gilda Carvalho is an Associate Professor at the Australian Centre for Water and Environmental Biotechnology (ACWEB) and the School of Chemical Engineering at the University of Queensland. She serves as Group Leader of the Drinking and Recycled Water research group and leads research in the area of Environmental Bioengineering, with a particular focus on microbial processes for water and wastewater treatment and resource recovery. Her research interests include the removal of Chemicals of Emerging Concern such as pharmaceuticals, PFAS, pesticides, and heavy metals; Biological Nutrient Removal; biofilm systems; membrane processes for water and wastewater treatment and reuse; and resource recovery from waste and wastewater streams through acidogenesis and biopolymer production, namely polyhydroxyalkanoates. Gilda has particularly developed the use of molecular tools to link microbial ecology and activity of biological systems to process performance.

Gilda has published over 90 peer-reviewed papers and has participated in more than 40 research projects, a significant number of which are multinational and involve industrial partners. Key publications include 'Editorial: Unlocking the value of wastewater: innovative biotechnologies and bioprocesses for resource recovery in a circular economy approach' (2025), 'Polyhydroxyalkanoates production from ethanol- and lactate-rich fermentate of confectionary industry effluents' (2023), 'The impact of pH on the anaerobic and aerobic metabolism of Tetrasphaera-enriched polyphosphate accumulating organisms' (2023), 'Electrochemical oxidation processes for PFAS removal from contaminated water and wastewater: fundamentals, gaps and opportunities towards practical implementation' (2022), and 'Sludge retention time impacts on polyhydroxyalkanoate productivity in uncoupled storage/growth processes' (2021). She is Coordinator of the Postgraduate Programs of Urban Water Engineering, with extensive teaching experience in Chemical, Environmental, and Bioprocess Engineering, and has supervised more than 20 PhD students. Current projects include the ARC Training Centre for Climate-Resilient Water (2025-2030) and a biofilm-based solution for cost-effective high-quality drinking water (2024-2027).