TEP expert dies in Galapagos fall

Professor Tom Berman, best known in the desalination world for his work on transparent exopolymer particles (TEPs), died last week after a fall during a vacation in the Galapagos Islands.

Smuggled out of Czechoslavakia at the age of five via the Kindertransport rescue for Jewish children, he grew up in Glasgow, Scotland, but moved to Kibbutz Amiad in Israel in 1951, where he had remained ever since. An aquatic scientist, he was a founder of the Kinneret Limnological Laboratory in 1968.

He became the first scientist to connect TEPs with membrane biofouling, work which has led to modern pretreatment systems and helped to make membrane treatment more reliable.

Prof Berman was to have been a presenter at the upcoming D&WR/IDA Online Symposium on Pretreatment for Reverse-Osmosis Seawater Desalination. Other presenters, including his friend Boris Liberman of IDE Technologies, have agreed to cover his area of expertise.