Recently, the management committee of International Water Association (IWA) Anaerobic Digestion Specialist Group carried out a new round election. Two professors of HIT were candidates, namely Prof. WANG Aijie and Prof. XING Defeng. WANG Aijie, the Professor from School of Environment, was elected as the new chairwoman of IWA Anaerobic Digestion Specialist Group. Prof. XING Defeng was appointed as a member of management committee as well as the only representative from East Asia.

Anaerobic Digestion Specialist Group is one of the most active and populous specialist group of IWA. Prof. WANG Aijie became the first Chinese scholar who acted as chairwoman. She was the winner of "Cheung Kong Scholars Program" of China, National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars and IWA Fellow. She mainly focus on wastes-to-bioresources research that based on anaerobic technologies.

Prof. XING Defeng is the winner of National Science Fund for Excellent Young Scholars and National High-level Talents Special Support Plan (Ten Thousand Plan). He mainly focus on the researches related to sewage treatment and energy conservation technologies.

School of Environment of HIT is standing on the international frontier in terms of anaerobic technologies. We initiated Ethanol Hydrogen Production and Fermentation Technology and Theory, achieved international influence and remarkable results in terms of Wastewater Carbon, Nitrogen and Sulfur Removal, Microorganism Electrochemical Technologies and Theories, Biological Treatment of Degradation-resistant Wastewater and so on.

International Water Association Anaerobic Digestion China Chapter was established in Harbin Institute of Technology in 2013 and academician REN Nanqi was elected as the first president. Harbin Institute of Technology together with Tsinghua University, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences and IWA AD China Chapter co-organized the 15th IWA World Conference on Anaerobic Digestion in October, 2017. Academician REN Nanqi and Prof. WANG Aijie co-chaired the meeting. The event had become a grant meeting with the most participants. Experts from all over the world shared their opinions in the field of anaerobic digestion and promised to make greater contribution to the development of anaerobic digestion technologies.