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)
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Full methodology is available for download here
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