Excess loading of reactive nitrogen and phosphorus into the environment from human activities has resulted in widespread eutrophication and the degradation of surface water quality and wildlife habitat. Wastewater is the dominant point source of nutrient loading into waterways, and thus represents a critical opportunity for treatment and prevention of...
Wastewater and bioreactors in wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are reservoirs for antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs), which can pass through treatment processes and migrate into the environment as they are released in effluent. WWTPs harbor a variety of ARGs that can be spread by horizontal gene transfer facilitated by mobile genetic...
A current challenge to the civil/environmental engineering field is to assist full-scale wastewater treatment facilities through wider use of advances in modeling methods and analytical techniques. To address this challenge I applied modeling tools and, with assistance, the molecular biology analytical method of Fluorescent In-Situ Hybridization (FISH) to the high...