We focus on leveraging environmental biotechnology to improve urban water infrastructure. Our group integrates molecular tools and modeling to understand how microbial community interactions and dynamics affect engineered water treatment systems. We are particularly interested in unraveling microbial cross-feeding within biofilms in water resource recovery facilities, understanding nitrogen metabolisms in engineered processes, and advancing process models for engineered systems that integrate new forms of biomolecular data.
Our research group seeks to develop a fundamental understanding of how microbes communicate and apply this knowledge to better (1) use biofilm processes within engineered urban water systems and (2) understand and harness emerging nitrogen cycling organisms within wastewater systems.
