Skip to main content Skip to local navigation

James Brown

Associate Course Director, Humanitarian Water Engineering; Technical Advisor, Safe Water Optimization Tool

Research Team

Click here to send email

James is a water, sanitation, and public health engineering specialist with over ten years of experience in programme delivery, cluster coordination, research, policy development, and capacity building, supporting countries across Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.

His work has involved the set-up of community health centres in Sierra Leone during the Ebola outbreak, coordinating contingency planning ahead of the Mosul offensive in Iraq and designing water supply and sanitation programs in South Sudan, Myanmar, Liberia, Iraq, Ukraine, Nigeria and Lebanon.

Over the past few years, he has developed a professional focus on appropriate market-based approaches, quality assurance and accountability, and data science applications in the field of WASH. He has contributed to several projects in these focus areas and co-authored technical guidance on Market Based Approaches for WASH and Quality Assurance and Accountability.

Prior to his work in the humanitarian sector, James co-founded a social enterprise in the UK focused on developing products to address barriers to safe drinking water access for households in rural communities, using designs that can be manufactured locally.

He completed a Masters in Product Design Engineering, a program jointly delivered by the University of Glasgow and the Glasgow School of Art, in 2009, combining mechanical engineering with human-centred design.

Themes

Global Health & Humanitarianism

Status

Active

Events

Humanitarian Water Engineering Course - Winter 2023 | December 13, 2022


Related Work

Humanitarian Water Lab | Project

Humanitarian Water Engineering | Education, Project, Research

Safe Water Optimization Tool | Project, Research

Updates

Applications Open! Humanitarian Water Engineering Online Intensive Course, Fall 2025 | July 3, 2025

Humanitarian Water Engineering Lab Kicks Off New Projects in Uganda | June 27, 2025

2024 Year in Review | December 19, 2024

Hot off the Press – New Opinion Article Publication: DATA: A Key for Unlocking Quality in WASH Programming | November 21, 2024

Hot off the Press — Evaluation of the Safe Water Optimization Tool to Provide Evidence-Based Chlorination Targets in Surface Waters: Lessons from a Refugee Setting in Uganda | October 15, 2024

DIGHR awarded major grant from Creating Hope in Conflict: A Humanitarian Grand Challenge to help improve safe water and public health in humanitarian crises | January 16, 2024

SWOT Team Brings Data into Action at University of North Carolina Water and Health Conference | November 9, 2023

Applications Open! Humanitarian Water Engineering Online Intensive Course, Fall 2023 | June 28, 2023

Applications Open! Humanitarian Water Engineering Online Intensive Course, Winter 2023 | January 10, 2023

York U researchers’ revamped AI tool makes water dramatically safer in refugee camps | November 4, 2022

Check out the SWOT at the UNC Water and Health Conference | October 19, 2022

Join us in Fall 2022 for the popular Humanitarian Water Engineering Online Intensive Course at the Dahdaleh Institute | June 8, 2022

Safe Water Optimization Tool (SWOT) featured in Compendium of Water Supply Technologies in Emergencies | May 6, 2021

Safe Water Optimization Tool featured as Bold Innovations Helping People in Conflict | April 21, 2021


You may also be interested in...