[2] He is an Affiliate (Former Faculty Senior Scientist) and formerly served as Director of the Energy and Environmental Technologies Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Three of his best-known technologies for the developing-world are "UV Waterworks" (a simple, effective, and inexpensive disinfection system for drinking water), the "Berkeley-Darfur Stove" (a low-cost sheet-metal stove that saves fuelwood in internally displaced person's camps in Darfur), and ECAR (ElectroChemical Arsenic Removal) for removing arsenic from water.

[3] Gadgil advocates for immediate and strategic action on the part of the research community to apply current scientific knowledge to address world-wide issues relating to climate change.

[6] Gadgil Is the Andrew and Virginia Rudd Family Foundation Distinguished Chair and Professor of Safe Water and Sanitation at the University of California, Berkeley.

At Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) Gadgil is a faculty senior scientist, and former director of the Environmental Energy Technologies Division[3] (2009–2015).

[11][12] In 1998 and again in 2006, Gadgil was invited by the Smithsonian Institution's Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation to speak at the National Museum of American History about his life and work.

[14] Most of that work was focused on reducing indoor radon concentrations in individual houses,[15] and protecting office-building occupants from the threat of chemical and biological attacks.

Ashok Gadgil[6]In recent years, he has worked on ways to inexpensively remove arsenic from groundwater used for drinking, and clean-burning biomass stoves, including design, production, and dissemination of the improved cookstoves for Darfur (Sudan) refugees.

Effective disinfection at affordable cost is the primary and most important feature of UV Waterworks—allowing an entire system (including costs of pumps, filters, tanks, housing-structure, consumables, and employee salaries for operation) to sell drinking water at about 2 cents US for 12 liters even in deep rural areas, where personal incomes are commonly less than $1 US per day.