Gundula Proksch
University of Washington, WA·Plant Science & Agriculture
Food production uses large amounts of fresh water, energy and fertilizer. Meanwhile, farms and factories discard waste streams full of water, nutrients and heat.
- Fields
Plant Science & Agriculture
Earth & Environmental Science
Engineering
- Topics
aquaponics
aquaculture
hydroponics
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Apr 2027
What they work on
- Evaluate aquaponics operations in diverse geo-climatic zones and document how their technologies and practices can be adapted to support local and regional food production.
- Advance aquaponics technology that recovers water, energy and nutrients from industrial and agricultural waste streams within existing supply chains, turning them into food and energy.
- Improve nutrient reuse and microbial relationships that support fish and plant health in aquaponic systems, while raising energy efficiency and reducing freshwater and fossil fuel needs.
- Develop scalable implementation models and community skills-building programs that help aquaponics adapt to local climate, economic and cultural contexts.
More about the research
Aquaponics combines fish farming with growing plants in water. Fish waste feeds the plants, and the plants clean the water for the fish. This international project asks how aquaponics can be adapted to local climate, economic and cultural conditions so that it supports sustainable, climate-resilient food production.
Why it matters
Adapting aquaponics to local climates could help communities and food producers grow fish and vegetables with less fresh water, fertilizer and fossil energy. It could also turn industrial and farm waste into food and income. Scalable models and local skills development may help regions build food systems that are more resilient to climate change.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Heather Jordan
Mississippi State University, MS·Microbiology & Immunology
Characterize the microbiomes of farmed insects and optimize them to improve insect nutrition, the value of insects as feed, and the conversion of waste into protein and compost.
Kofi Nyarko
Morgan State University, MD·Computer Science
Assess the commercial translation potential of an AI supervisory control platform for controlled-environment agriculture, through hands-on investigation of the hydroponic and greenhouse industry.
Maria Watson
University of Florida, FL·Social Science
Track how farms recover from severe windstorms over time, using repeated field visits to affected agricultural communities and surveys of farmers whose operations were damaged.
The school
University of Washington: 81 labs on PI Pages, $1.7B a year on research, 694 research doctorates a year.
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