Dr Ruth Fisher

Ruth Fisher joined the Odour Laboratory team in 2014 as a PhD candidate, and in 2017 became a Research Associate.

Her research interests include the characterisation of odorous emissions, highlighted in her PhD on odorous emissions from biosolids processing. 

“I believe researching the composition of nuisance odorants is vital as this allows the causes of emissions to be identified, and issues to be resolved at the source”

Her background as a chemical engineer supports her systems thinking approaches to solving odour emissions. Previous to her life at UNSW Sydney, Ruth worked at CSIRO on a number of projects on membranes for water treatment and industrial vent gas treatment. These projects introduced her to research and identifying opportunities for industry collaborations.

Her PhD was conducted with an Industry top-up scholarship from the CRC for Low Carbon Living (LCL) project RP2008 on the Beneficial Re-use of Biosolids. Working closely with industry partners such as Sydney Water, Hunter Water, and Suez opened the door for shared learning and greater impact of research outcomes

Ruth’s interests at UNSW also encompass waste management and sustainability assessment; for these topics she has been a demonstrator and most recently a postdoctoral teaching assistant and lecturer. “As engineers we need to take a step back and look at the interactions between systems, for example, when treating an odour we need to make sure we don’t shift the burden from one area or phase to another”.