Warinthorn Songkasiri

Biography

Dr. Warinthorn Songkasiri is currently a senior researcher and a lab head at the Excellence Center of Waste Utilization and Management (ECoWaste), National Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (BIOTEC).  She received B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in 1997, M.S. in Environmental Engineering from Stanford University in 1998, and Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from Northwestern University in 2003.  Her dissertation entitled “Biological Processes in the Nuclear Waste Treatment: Bio-Sorption and Bio-Reduction of Actinides” was conducted at Argonne National Laboratory.   Once she received her Ph.D. degree, she returned to Thailand and has been working in the environmental and renewable energy areas.  Her research interests include modeling three-phase flow pattern inside a biogas reactor to yield higher performance efficiency.  Further, she was a co-founder of the program called Starch Engineering and Process Optimization (SEPO) program, which incorporate the university-public-private partnership under the practice school concept to better understand knowledge within each operation unit of the starch production process. The research on starch production process has now been disseminated through capacity building workshop to increase productivity and reduce loss for the native cassava starch industry by the collaboration of GIZ and Department of Industrial Works, Ministry of Industry.  Dr. Warinthorn was participating in several EU-funded projects related to environmental and renewable energy topics. She was also a proposal evaluator for the FP7 Energy Evaluation Session on Efficient energy use in the manufacturing industry in 2011. Dr. Warinthorn works on several outreach projects, i.e., the Royal Project Foundation and HRH Princess Sirindhorn Royal Initiative projects.  Her major outreach task has been working as a manager on S&T curriculum development and sustainability for Mattayom Prarajchatan Nayao, HRH Princess Sirindhorn private school in Chacheungzao province.