Dr. Azwell is dedicated to creating safe, sustainable, and disaster resistant communities.

Current Research Topics:
Environmental Remediation, Biomimicry, and Wildfire Resilience

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Research supported by and done in collaboration with:

Remediation

2010 BP Oil Spill

Dr. Azwell aided in the assessment of environmental impact of the Deep Horizon Oil Spill on behalf of UC Berkeley and worked to restore the golf marshes in order to prevent further decay of receding shorelines across the Gulf of Mexico.

  • Assessed the damage from the oil spill
  • Proposed and deployed innovative and sustainable solution to prevent and undo some of the worse damage from oil spill on shorelines.
Industrial Ecology

Green-waste diversion

Dr. Azwell worked with Costco in order to set a new green standard for its over 800 stores worldwide. The diversion program for Costco has the potential to capture 100% of the organic waste, transport it away from the landfill to local composting facilities, where it is thermophilically composted and turned into a value added end product.

  • A significant portion of organic matter from retail stores end up in the municipal solid waste stream, meaning they end up in landfills.
  • Dr. Azwell's implemented solution for Costco is replicable for other businesses and has the potential to divert 100% of organic waste from landfills.
Wildland

Modernizing the Fire Service

Dr. Azwell is bringing together academia, innovative technologies, and fire service to demonstrate, evaluate, and deploy best available technologies for early fire detection, prevention, and firefighting.

  • Provide budding technologies and labs across the UC System and Stanford access to live fire scenarios.
  • Independently evaluate technologies with the help of the fire service and subject matter experts.