Colin Fitzgerald: 2025 Early Career Award recipient

BSCEE ’11, MSCEE ’13, (BS Physics ’11, UW-Eau Claire)
Global Principal and Technology Lead for Water Resource Recovery, Jacobs Engineering Group

An environmental engineer who is an innovator and leader in water resource recovery at one of the world’s largest engineering firms.

As an undergraduate, Colin Fitzgerald thought he’d go into structural or electrical engineering—fields that seemed a more natural fit with his physics background. But when he took one of Professor Trina McMahon’s environmental engineering classes, he had something of an epiphany: He realized he liked environmental engineering.

After that, Fitzgerald found a research position in Professor Greg Harrington’s drinking water lab. “Trina got me interested, Greg gave me more insight and opportunity to learn about water and wastewater treatment, and when I started working with Professor Dan Noguera for my master’s degree, that’s really where my passion came in,” he says.

The lessons he learned in Noguera’s lab studying biological nutrient removal processes have been critical in Fitzgerald’s career. Now, as the global principal and technology lead for water resource recovery with Jacobs Engineering Group, one of the largest and most respected engineering firms in the world, he helps direct some of the company’s major innovation and development initiatives.

“With Dan, most of my focus was on low dissolved oxygen and nitrification, and levels that were much lower than what folks in the industry designed to at the time,” he says. “Since graduating, that’s actually become a hot topic in the industry, because it uses less energy for water resource recovery facilities. Dan’s research group has been at the forefront of that for decades.

Recently, Fitzgerald’s work has focused on innovations to maximize capacity, improve performance and efficiency, and implement in reuse applications in the western United States and Singapore. Reuse can be a location-specific need, depending on how much water access a region has, but Fitzgerald says utilities also are exploring reuse as a means to address increasingly stringent effluent limits. As the need for more sustainable solutions to water management grows, industry leaders have looked to “one-water” solutions, which view all water as a single resource.

“One-water solutions are holistic views, so in water resource recovery, when we know we’re treating to feed a drinking water facility, we have less tolerance for variability,” he says. “We take more steps in innovation, design and control so we’re not making the drinking water plant have to respond to so much variability. It improves the overall efficiency of the treatment, which protects public health and keeps costs lower.”

What do you enjoy about your career?

I really love the passion and collaboration our field has. You’ll meet people at every step of the wastewater treatment process, from designers like me to operators to managers, and they’re all really passionate about the work they do. We also have a really collaborative industry. Of course, there’s competition among firms, but our conferences are still very collaborative, with people presenting the most innovative things they’re doing.

Of what professional accomplishment are you most proud?

Being selected for my current position as the global principal has been exciting because it provides me with the opportunity to help shape our company’s innovation in my practice area and to steward our talent. A big portion of my job is recruitment and mentorship of our staff, and we have a lot of connections around the world with people from different social or technical backgrounds and different career goals. So, all of that goes into helping shape the future of our development and our staff, and that’s been really exciting.

Which do you prefer?

Camp Randall, the Kohl Center, or the UW Field House?
Camp Randall Stadium.

Bascom Hill or Observatory Hill?
Bascom Hill.

Sweet Caroline or Jump Around?
Sweet Caroline.