An environmental engineer by training, Elizabeth became interested in nutrient recovery and non-sewered sanitation after a year of constructing urine-diverting dry toilets in an arid part of Mexico.  She did her Masters research in struvite recovery from urine at the University of British Columbia before working at Sandec, where she conducted a variety of social and technical research related to sanitation in developing countries. Currently, she is a PhD student studying development economics at Centre for Development and Cooperation (NADEL) at the ETH in Zurich. Her fieldwork is based in Durban, and is conducted in cooperation with UKZN and EWS.