The UK’s leading developer of specialised leak detection, water sustainability and environmental protection systems, Andel, has welcomed a world-leading environmental chemist to its to its team within the prestigious Nexus building on the University of Leeds campus. Devakunjari Vadibeler, who recently delivered the keynote speech at Flood Expo 2023 in Birmingham, joins the R&D team to help develop techniques to support product development and installations of affordable flood defence systems for homeowners.
The Barnsley-based global environmental protection specialist has more than 30 years of experience in leak detection, pollution prevention and flood defence and an impressive customer base that includes the Houses of Parliament, The Pentagon, Hong Kong International Airport and Google, and Deva will develop ground surveying technologies and data processing tools to allow bespoke installation of Andel's environmentally-friendly FloodWall, a modular perimeter flood defence system.
For the next 24 months, PhD graduate, Deva will work on soil and sediment hydrology to support a sustainable flood defence design as an associate in the Innovate UK Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTP) project with the Andel team and leading academics from the University of Leeds.
The University of Leeds has recently been ranked 75th globally in the 2024 QS World University Rankings and has a truly global community with more than 39,000 students from 170 different countries and over 9,000 staff of 100 different nationalities. Established in 1904, it has a strong tradition of academic excellence, reflected in first-class student education, along with world-leading research that has a real impact around the globe.
Deva will lead a high-profile, strategically important project from start to completion, investigating how Andel can take soil and sediment measurements at customer properties that can give confidence to the company and customers about the likely success of flood wall products to deal with soil hydrology challenges such as seepage, also helping modify installation processes and flood wall designs to tackle issues for different soil and sediment types.
Deva completed a doctoral study in Isotope Hydrology from the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, Austria. She said: “I am thrilled to be a part of a company with a strong vision, as well as a well-coordinated and supportive team like Andel. It's a team of individuals who are continuously pushing their limits together to accomplish greater success to achieve Andel's goals.
“It was a privilege to recently deliver the keynote speech at the Flood Expo and to be able to discuss our shared interest in long-term flood defence solutions that go beyond mere walls and barriers and instead be committed to environmentally-friendly approaches to ensure resilience against water overflow today, tomorrow and in the years to come.
“Working with Andel over the next two years, my goal is to develop a standardized operational procedure (SOP) on soil and sediment hydrology that focuses on improving the application of Andel FloodWall through laboratory works, ground surveying technologies and data processing tools. This protocol will enable customized installation approaches of Andel FloodWall. I am eager to face the challenges and opportunities this experience holds for me.”
