Robert Metcalf

Emeritus Professor, Biological Sciences, California State University, Sacramento. E-mail: rmetcalf@csus.edu

Biography:

Robert Metcalf is a Professor Emeritus at the California State University, Sacramento (CSUS), where he taught microbiology courses for 42 years (1970-2012). He invented the Portable Microbiology Laboratory, a game-changer for water testing, and has extensive experience with solar cooking and water testing in resource-poor countries. He co-founded International Water and Health Alliances, which supports community-based organizations to implement a strategy to eliminate waterborne disease. He also co-developed the Cookit and Water Pasteurization Indicator (WAPI) that verifies reaching 65°C. He led water testing workshops (2008–2012) for UN-Habitat in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia, and Rwanda, as UN-Habitat recognized the PML was ‘the missing link’ in water projects. For the last decade, he has worked with a community-based organization in Kenya, Friends of the Old (FOTO), to implement a strategy to eliminate waterborne disease for the 70,000 citizens who must rely on contaminated drinking water sources and use a simple solar cooker to cook food and pasteurize contaminated water. The FOTO strategy could be replicated worldwide for the 2 billion people who suffer from waterborne diseases and the 3 billion people who cook over fire and are not aware of the solar cooking alternative. Prof. has been partnering with OWHN Africa since 2021 and facilitated water testing workshops at ICWA since 2022.   Research Interests: The microbiology of water testing at the community level; solar cooking and solar water pasteurization