Dr. Mari Winkler is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Washington. Previously, she held a Marie Curie postdoctoral fellowship at Ghent University in Belgium. She has also spent time in industry, working with engineering companies to build, construct and upgrade wastewater treatment plants and to improve treatment processes.

Mari’s work explores microbiology, resource recovery and innovative wastewater and sludge treatment. One project focuses on developing enhanced nitrogen removal processes to convert ammonium into nitrogen gas without the use of oxygen or organic carbon, and can potentially reduce treatment plant costs and environmental impact. Her research will extend to phosphorus removal and recovery, end-of-pipe wastewater treatment, and microbial ecology. Dr. Winkler is the 2015 recipient of the Paul L. Busch Award for innovation in applied water quality research from the Water Environment & Reuse Foundation (WE&RF).

She received the Huber Technology Prize and the Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award from CH2M Hill.​