Staff

Chotiwat Jantarakasem

• Hock E. Tan Postdoctoral Fellow

• MIT's J-WAFS and the K. Lisa Yang Global Engineering and Research (GEAR) Center

Chotiwat Jantarakasem is a Hock E. Tan postdoctoral fellow at the Abdul Latif Jameel Water and Food Systems Lab (J-WAFS) and the K. Lisa Yang Global Engineering and Research (GEAR) Center. He works closely with Professor Amos Winter and Grex Sixt, PhD, to scope problems and identify research opportunities that address the pressing needs for access to clean water and sufficient food, particularly in underserved communities.

Prior to joining J-WAFS and the GEAR Center, Chotiwat’s research focused on developing and testing a custom-made smartphone application for easily assessing the safety of tap water in low- and middle-income settings. The app uses machine learning to automatically analyze photos of tap water taken with a smartphone camera. This simple, user-friendly, and open access tool is envisioned as part of a data crowdsourcing platform to enhance water quality data collection in regions lacking access to costly, laboratory-based equipment. It also aims to raise public awareness about the importance of water quality by involving the public as citizen scientists in the data collection process. Additionally, it can help communities engage constructively with their water suppliers to identify challenges and develop solutions.

Chotiwat holds a PhD in civil and environmental engineering from Imperial College London, a master’s degree in urban engineering from The University of Tokyo, and a bachelor’s degree in environmental engineering from King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi.