David Sanchez

David V.P. Sanchez is an Assistant Professor in the University of Pittsburgh’s Civil & Environmental Engineering department and serves as the Associate Director for the Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation.

Dr. Sanchez is responsible for building research and scholarly initiatives around Sustainable Water, Sustainable Food, Sustainable Innovation, and Global Engagement. Dr. Sanchez is also responsible for managing and directing MCSI’s Faculty, Education, and Community Engagement programs, which include the John C. Mascaro Faculty program, the Len Peters Faculty Fellows, the Community Education Fellows, the Master’s in Sustainable Engineering, the university-wide undergraduate certificate in sustainability and the Student Sustainable Innovation Fund. Dr. Sanchez continues to expand our network of positive working relationships with faculty, administration, students, and external partners (e.g. NGOs, Government agencies, Startups, and Fortune 500 companies) that support our broad education and research agenda. He also oversees the undergraduate and graduate sustainability curriculum and our K-12 programming.

His research is focused on identifying sustainable designs that address the Water and Energy grand challenges in the natural and built environment on a local/regional scale. Current projects include engineering electrode morphology for bio-electrochemical systems, designing sensors to identify water quality trends in real-time and, developing hydroponic systems for the phytoremediation of PFAS, removing off-flavors from Recirculating Aquaponic systems, and enhancing community agricultural systems.

He coordinates the Design EXPO that showcases 90+ projects from ~400 students every semester and serves as the Director for the Manufacturing Assistant Center’s Makerspace, Constellation Energy’s Inventor Labs, the Series Workshops and some engineering collaborations in the community of Homewood.

Dr. Sanchez is the recipient of several awards including a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, IGERT Traineeship, Alfred P. Sloan Scholarship, Pittsburgh Business Time Energy Award, Best Mentor Award for Pitt’s Excel program, Chancellor’s Distinguished Teaching Award, and the Soska Wilds Outreach and Engagement Leadership award. David actively leads international engineering trips on behalf of the Swanson School of Engineering.