Jolien De Paepe received the ‘Odissea’ prize

Submitted by Tim Lacoere on Fri, 10/03/2017 - 12:39

On 7 March 2017, ir. Jolien De Paepe of the center for microbial ecology and technology received the prestigious ‘Odissea’ prize for her study “Water recycling in Space: from urine to hygienic water” in the presence of jury president Viscount Dirk Frimout (Belgian astronaut and astrophysicist for ESA) and Christine Defraigne, President of the Belgian Senate. This annual prize of 8.000 euro is awarded to one or more students from a European University as a reward for their thesis on space research. This prize allows the laureate to perform an internship at a company or space agency. Recently, Ir. Jolien De Paepe also received a Ph.D grant from the MELiSSA foundation to develop the valorization of urine as a fertilizer for space application in the life support system program of the European Space Agency: MELiSSA. This research will be conducted at Ghent University and the University of Barcelona.