Alma Bartholow

alma_bartholow@berkeley.edu

RESEARCH & EDUCATION:

Alma is a second year PhD student studying microbial communities in water systems. She earned her B.S. in environmental engineering from Northwestern University. She is currently pursuing her M.S. at UC Berkeley with support from a CEE departmental fellowship. 

PATH: Alma has been interested in water and sewage from a young age. In her undergraduate career she worked on a research project studying the impact of road salt runoff on urban greenspaces. She also worked for the metropolitan water reclamation district of greater Chicago and studied abroad in Barcelona, Spain. Alma is now focusing her research interests on understanding the microbial communities of our engineered water systems to address public health shortcomings. This fall she will be collaborating on a cross-departmental project using wastewater-based epidemiology to study SARS-CoV-2.  

COMMUNITY & PERSONAL LIFE: As an undergraduate Alma advocated for empowering minorities in STEM and for sustainability projects on her campus through organizations such as the National Society of Black Engineers and Engineers for a Sustainable World. She has also volunteered with visiting immigrants detained at Dodge County Jail in Wisconsin and the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, WA. After her PhD she hopes to work for a governmental or an international organization.

Karina Chavarria

kari07cha@berkeley.edu

Karina Chavarria's LinkedIn  

RESEARCH & EDUCATION: Karina is a Ph.D. student investigating the effects of intermittent water supply (IWS) on microbial communities in drinking water distribution systems and identifying differences in microbial water quality between of continuous and IWS systems. She is interested in understanding microbial ecosystems in water infrastructures-drinking water and wastewater systems - in developing countries with the goal of providing information and recommendations to improve the reliability of water infrastructure and protect public and environmental health. Karina earned her B.S. in Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of California Los Angeles  and her M.S. in Environmental Engineering at UC Berkeley. Karina is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering with minors in Microbiology and Public Health.

PATH: Karina’s interest in access to safe water and sanitation stems from growing up in Guatemala and experiencing firsthand the risks associated with poor drinking water quality and lack of proper sanitation. As an undergrad, she worked in research projects that integrated field and laboratory approaches to understand the environmental fate and transport of microbial pollution (in LA coastal creeks and abroad). As an M.S. student, Karina was part of the Fundacion Cantaro Azul’s   impact evaluation study that assessed the efficacy of rural drinking water systems in Mexico. These research experiences and her passion to find solutions to provide safe water in developing countries led her to pursue a Ph.D. an become part of the Nelson Lab. Karina’s current Ph.D. work focuses on drinking water systems in Panama and is in close collaboration with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. Her research work in Panama will continue after graduation.

COMMUNITY & PERSONAL LIFE: As a graduate student, Karina joined the Latino/a Association of Graduate Students in Engineering and Science (LAGSES)  and was outreach coordinator (2015-2016). She worked with faculty, staff and students to create the Bay Area Graduate Pathways to STEM (GPS), a conference that promotes graduate school opportunities to underrepresented minorities, first generation and low- income students in California. She also helped create the LAGSES Fellowship Workshop, a mentoring program where students get the opportunity to help their peers in the fellowship application process. Karina is also very passionate about volunteering in the Alameda County Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) program for abused and/or neglected children.

Soliver Fusi

sfusi@berkeley.edu

Soliver Fusi's LinkedIn

RESEARCH & EDUCATION: Soliver is a third year PhD student studying the recovery of Nitrogen from source-separated urine. She earned her A.S in engineering from Prince George's Community College and her B.S in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering from the University of Maryland, College Park. 

PATH: She recently contributed to ' A Waste Minimized Protocol’ publication from work done in Perugia, Italy, where she learned greener methods to do science at the bench scale. She hopes to take this same approach to the field scale through her contributions to previous research from this group, in partnership with the social enterprise Sanergy, in Nairobi, Kenya. Soliver was a nursing assistant and medication technician, experiences which inform her desire for an environmental/social justice based approach to the technical aspects of the hard sciences. She is thus minoring in Development Engineering and Human Geography to broaden her understanding of how we engage with and are affected by environmental engineering technologies.

COMMUNITY & PERSONAL LIFE: She enjoys learning skills that allow her to envision a more equanimous lifestyle e.g. refining her navigation skills while hiking, volunteering at the community garden, and recovering resources from waste streams. 

Hannah Greenwald

hannah.greenwald@berkeley.edu

Hannah Greenwald's LinkedIn

RESEARCH & EDUCATION: Hannah is a fourth year PhD student studying how transitioning to Direct Potable Reuse will impact the microbiology in our drinking water distribution systems (will link to Research page). She earned her B.S in Environmental Engineering with a minor in Environmental Science from the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) and her M.S in Environmental Engineering from Berkeley. Hannah is currently pursuing her PhD in Environmental Engineering with minors in Microbiology and Public Health  with support from the Berkeley Fellowship and the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship.

PATH: She first became interested in water quality after experiencing the effects of poor drinking water quality and sanitation first-hand during a summer in Panama. Since then, Hannah has been committed to working toward access to clean water and sanitation through both advanced and low-cost technologies for application in the US and abroad. One of Hannah’s most rewarding experiences to date was working with PureMadi in South Africa through an REU with the Smith Lab to improve the design and local production of point-of-use ceramic water filters. Hannah also had the opportunity to travel to Bolivia to study aerosolized enteric pathogens from the La Paz River with the Brown Water Group. Her senior design project at Georgia Tech focused on nutrient recovery from source-separated urine in the Living Building. She built on this work after starting in the Nelson Lab by researching pathogen removal in a previously-developed technology for nutrient recovery from urine and by winning a Big Ideas Scaling Up award for this ion-exchange technology.

COMMUNITY & PERSONAL LIFE: Hannah is a current Berkeley Campus Representative for the NSF engineering research center Re-inventing the Nation’s Urban Water Infrastructure (ReNUWIt), and she enjoys teaching 1-5th graders about stormwater through Bay Area Scientists In School (BASIS). After graduate school, Hannah hopes to continue conducting research at the intersection of environmental engineering and public health as a  professor.

Adrian Hinkle

adrian.hinkle@berkeley.edu

Adrian Hinkle's LinkedIn

RESEARCH & EDUCATION: Adrian is a third year PhD student studying decentralized water reuse in California (will link to Research page). He earned his B.S. in Chemical Engineering and B.A. in International Studies at Oregon State University.

PATH: He first became interested in environmental engineering as an undergrad working with Engineers Without Borders. In addition to serving as chapter president, he worked with the team’s Nicaragua project, traveling on assessment and implemented trips to install a well and design a water distribution system in a rural village. He also did a research internship in Chile, studied abroad in Ecuador, and worked in consulting before coming to Berkeley. While still finalizing his research topic, he is already working towards a Development Engineering minor, and hopes to find a way for decentralized water treatment to make wastewater crop irrigation safer and more reliable.

COMMUNITY & PERSONAL LIFE: Adrian enjoys volunteering via many science-related avenues, most recently as a STEM mentor for middle schoolers through Be a Scientist. After his PhD, he hopes to work for the United Nations, the World Bank, or one of many NGOs researching water quality and security.

RESEARCH & EDUCATION: Utsav is postdoctoral researcher studying the recovery of nitrogen from source separated urine via ion-exchange processes. He obtained his Bachelor of Technology in Metallurgical and Material Science Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay and his PhD in Environmental Engineering from University of Maryland Baltimore County.

PATH: Utsav is passionate about building cost-effective technological solutions for the developing world. After his undergraduate education, he volunteered with a non-profit to build a solar dehydrator for a tribal community in India. In his efforts to contribute to sustainable resource recovery, he researched low-cost and -energy processes for phosphorus recovery from wastewater and waste solids in his PhD. His postdoctoral work focuses on improving sustainability of an ion-exchange based nitrogen recovery process. In addition, he will be building a pilot-scale treatment unit to demonstrate the feasibility of nitrogen recovery operation from source-separated urine. He hopes his work will have implications in mitigating issues of poor sanitation and resource scarcity in rural communities around the world.

COMMUNITY & PERSONAL LIFE: In the past, Utsav was involved in initiatives and activities which focused on personal and community development. He organized meditation and yoga events for the campus community. In addition, he was part of the Group of Rural Activities at IIT Bombay where he volunteered to teach children from nearby slums in Mumbai. At leisure, Utsav engages in portrait photography, weaving, cooking, yoga and pranayama.

Rose Kantor

rkantor@berkeley.edu

RESEARCH & EDUCATION: Rose is a staff scientist currently leading research in wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) applied to the SF Bay Area. During non-COVID19 times, she studies the microbial communities in water for potable reuse using meta-omics techniques. She is interested in changes to the drinking water distribution system microbial community with the introduction of advanced treated wastewater. More broadly, she is interested in the microbiology of engineered environments and microbial biotechnologies that improve environmental and human health. Rose earned her B.A. in Biology from Carleton College (2010), and her Ph.D. in Microbiology (2016) in the lab of Prof. Jill Banfield at UC Berkeley.

PATH: During her undergraduate, Rose studied abroad in Ecuador at the School for International Training, Conservation and Ecology program. There she learned about the effects of natural resource extraction on the environment and the people who depend on that environment.  Specifically, as she learned about mining-related contamination of natural waters, Rose sought a way to become involved, as a biologist- linking molecular mechanisms to ecosystem ecology.  This ultimately led her to the field of metagenomics, and to Ph.D. research on the removal of cyanide-related compounds from gold mining wastewater in South Africa.  Seeking a way to impact science closer to home, and having lived in California through an historic 6-year drought, she became interested in drinking water microbiology and potable reuse.  In her postdoc, Rose discovered her love of team science and large, multi-stakeholder collaborations, and during one year as a senior data scientist for an early-stage start-up, she learned about launching a team project from scratch.

COMMUNITY AND PERSONAL LIFE: Outside of research, Rose enjoys contra dancing, hiking, and cooking. 

RESEARCH & EDUCATION: Luis is a second-year PhD student from Santa Ana, El Salvador and raised in San Antonio, TX. He is currently investigating the impacts of water quality on struvite (MgNH4PO4:6H2O) formation and the implications for nutrient recovery. He earned his B.S. in Civil Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin and his M.S. in Environmental Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.

PATH: Luis knew from an early age he wanted to play in the NBA. At 6’3” he thought he had a shot, but his height plateaued by the time he finished middle school. He quickly realized he should focus on school instead. His backup plan was to be an educator or a scientist; to be able come up with solutions to help others, and empower people through education. Growing up in El Salvador he knew first-hand the problems surrounding water quality and intermittent water supplies, and the importance of a clean water supply. Taking classes in environmental science, engineering, and ethics reinforced these values while providing him a tool set to address real problems. At the University of Texas he became involved in undergraduate research, where he was influenced to think of wastewater as a resource instead of a waste. The experience fueled his interest in nutrient recovery and sustainable wastewater management for the future. Nowadays he spends his time thinking about repurposing nutrients from waste as fertilizers and the implications for soil, plant, and human health.

COMMUNITY & PERSONAL LIFE: Luis is passionate about science education and retention of underrepresented students in higher ed. Growing up in a mixed-status household and being the first son of immigrant parents to go to college, education was a value strongly instilled in him at a young age. Despite his family’s love and support, he lacked the guidance and mentorship from an engineer that would allow him to develop professionally. He didn’t even know what it meant to do research until he was a junior in college. Most underrepresented students don’t know what careers they can pursue if they don’t know someone in that profession, and Luis hopes to change that through mentorship.  He volunteers with a decal that partners with Super Stars Literacy in Oakland and teaches science to elementary school students. Through interactive activities, he hopes to expose science to students from an early age and introduce them to an array of STEM-related careers. Luis is also part of a graduate student community that advocates for resources to support undocumented graduate students through their graduate degrees, regardless of immigration status and nationality. He is debating his future plans but will likely stay in education and pursue a career at a Hispanic Serving Institution.

Luis Anaya

anaya_luis@berkeley.edu

Luis Anaya's LinkedIn

Dana Hernandez

danaah@berkeley.edu

Dana Hernandez's LinkedIn

Kevin Orner

Postdoc 2019-2021 

kevinorner@berkeley.edu

Kevin Orner's LinkedIn

RESEARCH & EDUCATION: Kevin was a postdoctoral researcher leading an NSF InFEWS project on recovery of nutrients from concentrated waste streams and production of fertilizer products. After obtaining a B.S. in Civil and Environmental Engineering with a certificate in Technical Communication from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2008, he joined the University of South Florida's Peace Corps Master's International Program, which combined one year of multi-disciplinary coursework on campus and two years of international service. Kevin served for two years in the Peace Corps as a Water & Sanitation Engineer in an indigenous community in rural Panama. Kevin received his M.S. in Civil & Environmental Engineering from the University of South Florida in 2011, worked in engineering consulting, then returned to Tampa and received his Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from the University of South Florida in 2019. In 2018 he conducted research under a Fulbright Research Grant in Monteverde, Costa Rica, where he investigated nutrient and energy recovery from pig and cow manure using anaerobic digestion and struvite precipitation. 

PATH: Kevin was first encouraged to pursue environmental engineering and sustainable development as an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison through Engineers Without Borders. Through engineering service in communities in El Salvador and Ecuador, he discovered that he wanted to do more than have a job and make a living; he wanted to help people locally and globally by addressing challenges such as providing affordable access to all to clean water and sanitation. Inspired by these international service experiences, Kevin connected with Dr. James Mihelcic and began the Peace Corps Master’s International Program at the University of South Florida. 

COMMUNITY & PERSONAL LIFE: At the University of South Florida, he was a member of the Peace Corps Prep group with faculty and staff from public health, anthropology, and global sustainability that prepares students for international service experiences through coursework and service. In March 2017 he organized and led an international service learning internship for 20 Honors College students at a Peace Corps Volunteer’s site in rural Panama, where students assisted in construction of a drinking water system and volunteered at a local health clinic. His long-term goal is to obtain a tenure-track faculty position in Environmental Engineering, where he can research resource recovery technologies, teach with integrated sustainability themes and international applications, and serve local and global communities through sustained mutually beneficial collaborations. In his free time, he enjoys biking, hiking, traveling, playing ultimate, and reading.

Jannis Wenk

Postdoc 2012-2014  

J.H.Wenk@bath.ac.uk

Temitope Ogunyoku

Postdoc 2011-2013

taogunyoku@gmail.com

Lauren Kennedy

kennedylaurenc@berkeley.edu

Lauren Kennedy's LinkedIn

RESEARCH & EDUCATION: Lauren was a Ph.D. student studying microbial communities in drinking water distribution systems. She was particularly interested in identifying differences between predicted metabolic capabilities between microbial communities in conventional drinking water systems and those in simulated direct potable reuse systems. Her work has provided recommendations for monitoring distribution systems before and after transitioning to direct potable reuse. She earned her B.S. in Environmental and Ecological Engineering at Purdue University with a minor in Environmental Politics and Policy, and her M.S. in Environmental Engineering at UC Berkeley. She earned her Ph.D. at UC Berkeley in Environmental Engineering with minors in Microbiology and Analytics.

PATH: Lauren’s path to the Nelson Lab was by no means direct. As an undergrad, she worked in labs based in Materials Engineering, Environmental Chemistry, and Environmental Systems Science. She became interested in direct potable reuse after taking Environmental Sustainability and Environmental and Ecological Systems Modeling (EEE 355 and 300) at Purdue. She became interested in microbiology after taking several ecology classes as part of her degree requirements in undergrad. These interests led her to the Nelson Lab for her Ph.D. work. She is appreciative of the support and advice she has received from these mentors on her winding path. Their different perspectives and fields of research still shape her research approach today.

COMMUNITY AND PERSONAL LIFE: Expanding your Horizons is a conference that brings ~400 middle school girls to UC Berkeley to learn about STEM fields. She volunteered each year as an organizer of a workshop for their parents that provides information about college prep, financial aid, and STEM activities in the bay area. In addition, she is a co-founder to the Environmental Engineering Advocacy Team- a group of graduate students working to build community in Civil and Environmental Engineering, voice graduate student concerns, and support each other.

Scott Miller

miller.scottevan@berkeley.edu

Scott Miller's LinkedIn

RESEARCH & EDUCATION: Scott investigated unique risks to microbial drinking water quality in pilot-scale and simulation-scale direct potable reuse treatment systems (will link to Research page). He earned his B.S. in Civil Engineering from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities and his M.S. from the University of California, Berkeley. 

PATH: Scott discovered an early love for water in National Geographic magazines, where he would replicate stories on hurricanes and floods on his mom’s old college typewriter, and weekends on the lakes of Minnesota where he grew up. Moving to California during the great drought of the 2010s was shocking, and Scott intentionally dove into the literature on potable water reuse in his M.S. year. The rising interest in direct potable reuse, in which highly purified wastewater can be directly introduced into a drinking water distribution system, was an exhilarating idea to Scott, but he was curious about the impact of aggressive treatment technologies on the microbiology of finished water and concerned about unintentional impacts on the downstream distribution system microbial communities. 

COMMUNITY AND PERSONAL LIFE: Scott is very interested in science education and policy. He founded and coached the Quiz Bowl team at Berkeley High School for three years, and recently began lecturing his first course in Spring 2019 on the use of natural treatment systems (e.g., ponds and wetlands) to improve water quality. He’s been active with community science education groups Bay Area Scientists in Schools and Be a Scientist, and additionally co-chairs the graduate student group Environmental Engineering Advocacy Team. He has produced four episodes for the ReNUWIt “Water You Talking About?” podcast series on topics such as water engineering history and contemporary conflicts over bottled water and water rights. He enjoys binge-listening to politics podcasts, commuter biking, all-sides brownie pans, and fantasy literature.

   Erica Fuhrmeister

efuhr@berkeley.edu

Erica Fuhrmeister's LinkedIn

RESEARCH & EDUCATION: Erica studied sanitation and enteric pathogens in rural Bangladesh. She received her B.S. in Environmental Engineering from Johns Hopkins University and M.S. and PhD in Environmental Engineering from UC Berkeley.

PATH: She first became interested in the Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WaSH) field as an undergraduate researcher at the Bloomberg School of Public Health. Here she worked at the intersection of public health and environmental engineering to develop a mathematical model to characterize sanitation practices and safe waste disposal in low- and middle- income countries. She also got her first taste of wet lab work in a project where she developed a protocol used in a study in Bangladesh by culturing E. coli from local streams in Baltimore.

COMMUNITY AND PERSONAL LIFE: In graduate school Erica was an advocate of diversity in STEM research. She was a board member of the graduate chapter of SACNAS at Berkeley, which aims to promote diversity through recruitment, professional development and support for current graduate students. Moving forward in her academic career, she hopes to continue to combine engineering, microbiology and public health disciplines in her research and develop educational tools for promoting interest in STEM research. She started a postdoctoral position at Tuffs University in summer 2019.

Sharada’s research focused on recovery of nutrients, primarily Phosphorous, from human waste, particularly from fecal sludge, and their reuse in Indian agriculture. His work focuses on under­stand­ing poli­cies and reg­u­la­tions that encourage businesses to facil­i­tate reuse of sludge as fertilizer. He is interested in knowing why some farm­ers do not use fae­cal sludge irrespective of its high nutrient value. He explored frameworks to quan­ti­fy­ the micro­bial risks involved in collection and reuse of septage, and estimate poten­tial Phos­pho­rous and Nitro­gen that can be aug­mented by reuse. His research also encom­passed social and envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice issues related to sanitation work aris­ing out of caste based dis­crim­i­na­tion in India. He uses photography to communicate part of his research to wider audience.

Sharada Prasad

sharadaprasad@berkeley.edu

Sharada Prasad's LinkedIn

Rachel Sklar

rsklar@berkeley.edu

Rachel Sklar's LinkedIn

Olga’s research involves spatial analysis and life-cycle assessment of decentralized infrastructure, with specific applications on water reuse and nitrogen recovery. She is developing planning support tools and methods to improve the usage of energy and water resources under the constraints of climate change.

Olga Kavvada

PhD, 201-

Will Tarpeh

wtarpeh@stanford.edu

PhD, 2017

Andrea Silverman

PhD 2013, Postdoc 2015-2016

andrea.silverman@nyu.edu

Anne Thebo

PhD, 201-

athebo@pacinst.org

John Erickson

PhD

john.j.erickson@gmail.com

Andrew Torkelson

 PhD 2015

aatorkelson(at)gmail.com

Mi Nguyen

PhD 2015

mi.nguyentra@gmail.com

 Fermin Reygadas

PhD 2014

Fermin (AT) cantaroazul.org

Rabia Chaudhry

PhD 2014

rabia999@gmail.com

Emily Kumpel

PhD 2013

emily.kumpel@gmail.com

Logan Smesrud

logan.smesrud@berkeley.edu

RESEARCH & EDUCATION: Logan was a master’s student in the environmental engineering program. She worked in the nutrient recovery group, with a focus on nitrogen recovery from source-separated urine. Logan earned her B.S. in Environmental Engineering from Oregon State University.

PATH: While at Oregon State University, Logan explored her interests in global health and water quality through leadership roles in Engineers Without Borders and involvement in undergraduate research. She wrote her undergraduate honors thesis on assessing the risk of spreading antibiotic resistance through the reuse of treated wastewater. 

After graduating with her B.S., Logan joined the U.S. Peace Corps and taught high school physics and computer technology in rural Mozambique for two years. Adapting to a lifestyle without running water allowed her to develop a more intimate appreciation for water resources, water quality, and sanitation. During and after her graduation from OSU, Logan also gained experiences in the public and private sectors of the water treatment industry. She worked for six months at a private consulting firm on a range of water and wastewater engineering projects, and worked for one year at a municipal wastewater treatment plant in Portland, OR. 

After earning her M.S. at Berkeley, Logan plans to continue combining her interests in water treatment with global health and development.

COMMUNITY AND PERSONAL LIFE: Outside of classes and research, Logan enjoys staying involved with her Phi Sigma Rho engineering sorority, tutoring high school students online, traveling, and outdoor adventures.

John Law

ccljohn123@berkeley.edu

John Law's LinkedIn

Ileana Wald

Ileana Wald's LinkedIn

Mira Chaplin

@berkeley.edu

Mira Chaplin's LinkedIn

Mira is a third year undergraduate studying Civil and Environmental Engineering at UC Berkeley. Her research in the Nelson Lab focuses on the impacts of potable water reuse. 

As a Berkeley native, Mira developed an interest in the flows of water in California through childhood hiking in the Berkeley hills, where she saw the changes in streamflow and ecology throughout the year. During a gap year studying in China, Mira developed an interest in environmental engineering when she saw how air quality affected daily life in Beijing. Mira’s interest in water came from her experiences with Engineers Without Borders, where she has worked with a community in Panama on the construction of a water distribution system. Through conversations with community members and activists, Mira developed an interest in the use of technology to provide equal access to water, and came to realize that complex sociopolitical and environmental issues are behind unequal access to water. Last summer, Mira completed a REU with at Virginia Tech, where she sampled water from streams in Western Virginia, and wrote a report on the changes in concentration of water quality contaminants downstream of surface coal mines under high and low flow conditions. This made her aware of the complexities of environmental issues in rural areas, and sparked her interest in research as a way of promoting change. In the Nelson lab, Mira has worked on determining protocols to use flow cytometry to measure the impact of direct potable reuse on distribution systems. She is currently working on a project to simulate the switch of water distribution systems to DPR water. Through her research, Mira hopes to increase understanding of the potential of water reuse to remediate the California water crisis.

Mira is a project lead for the UC Berkeley Engineers Without Borders Nicaragua Water project, where she leads a team designing a water distribution system in rural Nicaragua. She also teaches a decal course on farm worker rights and environmental justice in the Central Valley, and is leading a spring break trip where students work with social justice organizations.  In her spare time, Mira enjoys baking, cross-country skiing, and seeing local plays.