Prof. Dr. Elizabeth Tilley

In 2021, Elizabeth joined the Mechanical and Process Engineering Department as the Chair of Global Health Engineering. As an engineer and an economist, Elizabeth is interested in the technological, social, and financial drivers for sustainable urban services that affect health, primarily in over-​exploited countries. Her current work is focused on the impacts of solid waste management on sanitation systems, air quality, and wellbeing in the growing cities of the Global South.

Following her training as an engineering in Canada, Elizabeth 5 spent years at the Department Sanitation, Water and Solid Waste for Development (external page Sandec) at the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (external page Eawag) developing and piloting appropriate sanitation and nutrient recovery technologies in East Africa, Nepal, and Central America.

For her doctoral thesis in economics at ETH Zurich she researched the feasibility and community impacts of conditional cash transfers to increase sanitation coverage in eThekwini, South Africa. From 2015-​2020 Elizabeth worked as a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Environmental Health at the University of Malawi, the Polytechnic in Blantyre, Malawi, where she and her students investigated the myriad ways that the disconnect between population demands and service delivery, especially related to water, sanittation, and solid waste, were affecting the people and environmental systems of the area.

Currently, she is also an Honorary Research Fellow at the external page SARCHI Chair in Waste and Climate Change at the University of KwaZulu-​Natal, Durban, South Africa, an external page Adjunct Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of Victora, Canada, and Associated Faculty Member of D-​GESS.

She is an Associate Editor at the Journal external page Water SA and the external page Journal of Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene for Development.