Technion-born Dr. Roni Penn, daughter of Technion Prof. Michal Penn, is innovating new ways to enhance the efficiency and efficacy of water and sewer systems
Roni Penn was born in Haifa to a pair of students who lived in the Technion dormitories. After high school, Nahal Brigade service, and an after-army trip she came back to campus in 2003 as an environmental engineering student. After 12 years at the Technion, equipped with a doctorate degree in civil and environmental engineering, which she received under the guidance of Prof. Eran Friedler, she went on to a post-doctorate at the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (ETC- Eawag) and in 2019 returned to the Technion for a second time, this time as a faculty member in the Environmental, Water and Agricultural Engineering Division of the Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty.
“I was always very proud of my mother who is a Professor at the Technion,” she says, “but in my youth, to be a faculty member was not my life’s ambition and it was not what I thought I would do when I grew up. Life has its own interesting flow,” she adds with a smile. And she should know, as Dr. Roni Penn’s research deals with flow. She is an expert in modeling and experimenting with the movement of solids in wastewater and investigating their effects on sewage systems.
Her mother, Prof. Michal Penn, joined the Technion faculty in 1992. She was raised and educated in Kibbutz Naveh Eitan, and during her army service, she completed external matriculation. Following her undergraduate studies in mathematics and statistics at the Hebrew University she went for an eight-month trip to Africa – and then landed at the Technion. “I wanted to do performance research, and the Technion was the best place for that,” she says. “This worked out great with my husband, Michael, who started studying here at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering while I studied for my master’s and doctoral degrees in performance research at the Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management. We moved into the junior faculty dormitories and that’s where Roni was born.”
“So I was actually born in the Technion,” says Roni, “and even after moving to our own apartment, the connection continued, because I used to come to the pool, play tennis with my dad in front of the wall. It’s really the place where I grew up.”
Upon the completion of studies, the family moved to Vancouver, Canada, where Michal completed her post-doctorate at the University of British Columbia (UBC) and Michael – his master’s degree. When the family returned to Israel, Dr. Michal Penn joined as a faculty member of the Davidson Industrial Engineering and Management Faculty. “I deal with performance research and combinatorial optimization,” she says and explains: “Actually, I work on finding optimal solutions to complex problems. For example, the traveling agent – when the agent has to visit a given number of cities in the shortest time. The problem seems simple, but it is very difficult to solve. In one of my projects, I assisted ‘Zim’ with planning the loading and unloading of containers on their ships. This is a very complex problem where there are different types of containers along the route that need to be loaded and unloaded, and the goal is to do this in the most effective way. As a rule, these are such complex mathematical problems that we usually solve them with approximate methods and research their individual cases.”
Roni, her daughter, works in a completely different field – the development of models for examining the transition to efficient water systems and the effect of such a transition on existing water and sewer systems. She says wastewater in Israel undergoes purification processes in central facilities while being transported long distances.
“Many studies show that, in some cases, decentralizing treatment of this water and purifying it at local facilities in the home, building or neighborhood level is more efficient both economically and in terms of the water cycle and the nutrients found in the wastewater. This is an important and correct trend, but as a change, the decentralization of water treatment also causes side effects unrelated to its initial purpose. Such a change raises many complex maintenance and management questions, especially in the transition phase from centralized systems to distributed or hybrid (partially decentralized) systems. From a research standpoint, there is a mix of many fields – physics, chemistry, mechanics, flow and biology while using advanced research tools like cameras, lasers, machine learning, and data science – and I am developing theoretical solutions, models and simulations and conducting experimental research on reactors simulating the transport system. The lab that I am building here will have a 30-meter tube, rooted throughout with cameras and lasers that will allow us to monitor the state of liquids and solids in various flows. The goal is to develop sewer system dynamics models, build scenarios and give recommendations to the planners.”
How did you get into this field?
“In high school, I studied physics, chemistry, and mathematics, but I also very much liked to teach. In the army, I was a teacher and I was drawn to the fields of education. I searched for a field that was practical but with educational value and social impact. So, when I signed up for the Technion, I chose a practical path that has implications for society: environmental engineering.”
She says, “Most people just flush the toilet water and they don’t care what happens beyond that. I’m a profound person and I love to explore things in depth. Sewage systems are very important to the lives of all of us, if we do not treat wastewater properly, we will all become sick.”
Recently, Dr. Roni Penn participated in the Technion’s guidance day for new faculty members, during which they are given an introductory tour of the campus, the various administrative divisions and also the teaching and research requirements. “I have known the Technion all my life and yet it feels different to return to campus as a faculty member and I have to learn and understand the many requirements of new Technion faculty members.”
What about female representation on campus?
“Along with me, five new female faculty members were hired,” says Roni, “that’s almost a third of all new faculty members recruited this year.”
Michal notes that she has seen a lot of progress in female representation on campus among Roni’s generation, but she thinks there is still more work to be done. “At my graduation ceremony at the Technion in 1988, I remember being almost the only woman. When Roni graduated in 2016, almost half of the graduates were women.”
“In our Industrial Engineering and Management faculty there are many female students studying for varying degrees, this was also the case in my day; the problem is that down the road, as faculty members, the number of women unfortunately diminishes. My progress has always been slower, but that was my choice because I had little kids at home and that was the pace that suited me. I always did everything slower but never felt less appreciated than my colleagues in light of my pace.
“It is important for me to wish Roni success on the path she has chosen. From personal experience, I know that this is not an easy path, but it is important that she remain attentive to the path she takes and not just the result and the end goal. It is important for her to take calculated risks, and especially take things in proportion and remain attentive to herself.”