RESEARCH
General areas of interest:
Biological wastewater and water treatment
Microbial ecology of wastewater and water treatment systems
Wastewater-based epidemiology for monitoring human pathogens
Environmental synthetic biology
Resource recovery from wastewater (energy, water, nutrients, chemicals)
Sustainability assessments to guide design and implementation of treatment and recovery systems
Wastewater-based epidemiology
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Wastewater surveillance of SARS-CoV-2
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Collaborators: Loren Hopkins (Houston Health), Kathy Ensor, Anthony Maresso (BCM), Phil Bedient, Francis de los Reyes (NC State), Nadine Kotlarz (NC State), Jeseth Delgado Vela (Howard), Adam Smith (USC)
Environmental synthetic biology
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Developing biosensors for measuring horizontal gene transfer in situ
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Collaborators: Joff Silberg and Carrie Masiello
Fate of antibiotic resistance in resource recovery processes
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Assessing treatment strategies to reduce exposures to antibiotic resistant microorganisms and genes
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Collaborators: Adam Smith (USC)
Integrated water management
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Developing quantitative modeling tools for design and performance assessment of integrated water management systems
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Collaborators: Qilin Li, Leonardo Dueñas-Osorio, and Pedro Alvarez
Microbial exposures post flooding
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Assessing microbial exposures in floodwaters and indoor air post-Harvey
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Collaborators: Qilin Li, Pedro Alvarez, Carrie Masiello, Jim Elliot, and Noah Fierer (CU Boulder)
Resource recovery from food waste
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Valorizing food waste organics via conversion to high value chemicals
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Collaborators: George Bennett and Ka-Yiu San