40th RJ Reynolds Award Recipient Francis de los Reyes Conducts Research at the Interfaces

Francis de los Reyes, Glenn E. and Phyllis J. Futrell Distinguished Professor of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering, was honored with the 2024 R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company Award for Excellence in Teaching, Research and Extension on Nov. 11.

He is the 40th recipient of this award, which is supported by the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company through the NC State Engineering Foundation. Winners receive a $25,000 award paid out over five years.

At an award ceremony held in Talley Student Union on NC State’s campus, de los Reyes delivered a lecture titled “Intersections and Interfaces: A Journey Through Water, Waste and Equity Challenges.”

“I hope I’ve convinced you that magic things happen at the interfaces,” said de los Reyes as he wrapped up his lecture. “That’s where you want to be.”

Throughout his career, de los Reyes has worked at the interfaces and intersections of STEM research and societal well-being, specifically on improving global sanitation. The R.J. Reynolds Award recognizes the exceptional work he has done in this area, not just through research but also in educating students and in outreach to communities.

Growing up in the Philippines under a dictatorial regime, de los Reyes was involved with student activism and part of the millions who ousted the dictator from power. He initially wanted to be an agricultural engineer, but at the University of the Philippines, he developed his interest in water quality.

De los Reyes was one of the first environmental engineers to start working at the interface of molecular microbiology and engineered environmental processes during his Ph.D. at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and in his early years at NC State. He is a leading researcher in the field of integrated biological process engineering and in the use of molecular microbiological tools to improve the analysis, design and operation of engineered and natural waste treatment and waste-to-energy and waste-to-resources systems. 

He has worked with students and colleagues to put his research into action to improve sanitation in low- and medium-income country settings, including the Philippines, India, China, South Africa, Pakistan, Kenya and Malawi.

In his lecture, he shared an example of that on-the-ground research work: the invention and refinement of the Flexcrevator and Excluder, devices that provide a sanitary method for emptying pit latrines. The research group won the RELX Group Environmental Challenge Award in 2018 and the Patents for Humanity Award in 2020 for its work developing the technology. 

But despite the devices’ eventual success in the field, they are still not widely adopted, in part due to a lack of regulations around sanitation and difficulty in finding a manufacturer to make the device and sell it at an affordable price.

“It was a big lesson that engineering is not going to solve everything,” de los Reyes said.

The experience reinforced his belief that engineers and researchers need to be comfortable with failure — and with persistence. 

Last year, de los Reyes and a team of faculty from six universities made it to the final round of the National Science Foundation’s selection process for Engineering Research Centers. While their project was not selected, de los Reyes continues to work on solving sanitation problems in the United States and abroad, to mentor and inspire students who want to make a difference in this area, and to apply for funding to do this work. He also continues to look for intersections by working at the “adjacent-possible” of his field.

“Adjacent possible is being at the leading edge of your field and then sticking your head out and looking around at the other fields, maybe in microbiology, maybe in data science, maybe in social science, because that’s where you can make the next big step,” he said in his lecture. “It’s kind of like a room with a series of doors. You exit one there’s another room with another series of doors. You go to the other door [and] before you know it, you’ve gone a long way, and you’ve pushed the frontier. But you can never predict where it is, because you can only connect the dots afterwards.”

This post was originally published in College of Engineering News.