University of Colorado Boulder professor Karl Linden was awarded the 2020 Clarke Prize, the nation’s most prestigious award for water research, the university announced Monday.

The annual $50,000 award is given to leaders in water research whose work serves to solve real world problems. Linden will be presented the prize Tuesday by the National Water Research Institute (NWRI) and the Joan Irvine Smith and Athalie R. Clarke Foundation.

Linden is the Mortenson Professor in Sustainable Development at CU. His research centers around water sustainability in rural communities and disinfecting water treatment systems through ultraviolet light-based processes.

Linden has pioneered ultraviolet light applications in water treatment for more than 20 years.

His applications are used by the most advanced water treatment systems in the world and are being developed for water sanitation projects in low- to middle-income countries.

Linden won the 2020 Borchardt-Glysson Water Treatment Innovation Prize, the 2019 Dr. Pankaj Parekh Research Innovation Award and the 2019 Walter J. Weber Jr. Frontier in Research Award.

He was president of AEESP from 2019 to 2020 and his work has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The virtual award ceremony, featuring a lecture by Linden titled “Water Treatment at the Speed of (UV) Light,” will be available Tuesday at 1:30 p.m. on the NWRI website.