About Simon Judd
With over 35 years’ post-doctorate experience in both academic and industrial R&D, Simon's work has spanned all aspects of water and wastewater treatment technology.
Simon has an extensive network of contacts within the water industry, both nationally and internationally and has provided a full range of consultancy services to industry clients, from technology appraisal to troubleshooting of full-scale installations.
He has had professorial positions both in the UK and the Arabian Gulf, where he occupied the Maersk Oil Professorial Chair in Environmental Engineering at Qatar University. He is Emeritus Professor at Cranfield University, where he worked within the Water Science Institute for almost 30 years.

Simon has procured and managed a number of large, industrially-focused collaborative R&D programmes. His areas of research have been based primarily on membrane technology, and he has successfully supervised over 30 research student programmes (22 at doctorate level). Having over 210 publications and an h index of 59 (SCOPUS) as of end 2022, Simon has published extensively in the peer-reviewed research literature. He has (co-)authored five textbooks in membrane and MBR technology and two in general water/wastewater treatment technology.
He has delivered keynote presentations at many international conferences, as well as consultancy to clients, and bespoke courses to delegates across Europe, America, the Middle East and Far East. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and Associate Fellow of the Institution of Chemical Engineers. In 2015, he was voted no. 5 in Water and Wastewater International’s website poll Celebrating the Water Industry’s High Fliers.
Simon's Highlights
- Held professorial posts at two different universities in the Gulf and in the UK.
- >35 years’ post-doctorate experience in municipal and industrial water and wastewater treatment technology development, including project procurement, management and delivery.
- >$10m of funding secured from competitive bidding in national/international funding programmes (UKRC, EUFP, QNRF, etc) or directly from industry, mainly as lead principal investigator (LPI).
- >210 publications in peer-reviewed journals, primarily on membrane technology; h index of 59 on SCOPUS (as of December 2022).
- Author of ‘The MBR Book’ (two editions), ‘Watermaths’ (three editions), and ‘Industrial MBRs’. Co-author of three other reference/text books on membrane technology and general water and wastewater treatment design. Chapters contributed to five other general reference books.
- Supervision of over 30 completed research student programmes and more than 90 masters’ thesis projects.
- Consultancy provided to clients internationally (North, Central and South America, Europe, Middle East and Far East) on membrane, MBR and biological treatment technology, ranging from market/technology appraisal to troubleshooting of full-scale installations.
- Wide-ranging research topics studiede, including disinfection byproduct formation, algal technology, micropollutants, water reuse, coagulation, magnetic conditioning, gas precipitation, chemical reduction, ion exchange technology and sludge processing as well as membrane technology.
- Municipal and industrial wastewaters studied, including petroleum, landfill leachate and textile.
- Applied research in cost benefit analysis, technology challenge assessment and process optimisation for membrane technologies and MBR technology in particular.
- Editorial board/committee member of four learned journals.
- Extensive professional links with senior managers across the UK and international water industry, in particular membrane and MBR technology suppliers, practitioners, consultants and end users.
- Owner of ‘The MBR Group’ on LinkedIn.com (>12,000 members, as of December 2022), with over 8,000 personal profile connections/followers.
- Owner/Manager of The MBR Site (www.thembrsite.com), SludgeProcessing.com and author of The MBR Blog.