Surveillance of pathogens in sewage and wastewater has been used for many years to understand outbreaks of infectious disease, bu the COVID-19 pandemic transformed the use of this tool into a much more common and accepted way to understand disease transmission within communities. Research in our lab aims to understand and implement the use of such tools, as well as characterize the underlying principles of WBE.

Graham, Katherine E, Stephanie K Loeb, Marlene K Wolfe, David Catoe, Nasa Sinnott-Armstrong, Sooyeol Kim, Kevan M Yamahara, Lauren M Sassoubre, Lorelay M Mendoza Grijalva, Laura Roldan-Hernandez, Kathryn Langenfeld, Krista R. Wigginton, and Alexandria B. Boehm. “SARS-CoV-2 RNA in Wastewater Settled Solids Is Associated with COVID-19 Cases in a Large Urban Sewershed.” Environmental Science & Technology 55, no. 1 (2020): 488–98.

Wolfe, Marlene K, Anand Archana, David Catoe, Mhara M Coffman, Samuel Dorevich, Katherine E Graham, Sooyeol Kim, Lorelay Mendoza Grijalva, Laura Roldan-Hernandez, Andrea I Silverman, Nasa Sinott-Armstrong, Duc J. Vugia, Alexander T. Yu, Winnie Zambrana, Krista R. Wigginton, and Alexandria B. Boehm. “Scaling of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in Settled Solids from Multiple Wastewater Treatment Plants to Compare Incidence Rates of Laboratory-Confirmed COVID-19 in Their Sewersheds.” Environmental Science & Technology Letters 8, no. 5 (2021): 398–404.

Ye, Yinyin, Robert M Ellenberg, Katherine E Graham, and Krista R Wigginton. “Survivability, Partitioning, and Recovery of Enveloped Viruses in Untreated Municipal Wastewater.” Environmental Science & Technology 50, no. 10 (2016): 5077–85.

Nonpoint source pollution, such as urban or agricultural runoff, is the leading cause of waterbody impairment in the US according to the US EPA. Green stormwater infrastructure or low impact development may alleviate these issues, but the full impact of them on microbial water quality is understudied. The research in our group aims to develop methods to track fecal pollution in the environment and model the effect of engineering interventions on water quality, using microbial source tracking tools and quantitative microbial risk assessment (QMRA).

Graham, Katherine E, Claire E Anderson, and Alexandria B Boehm. “Viral Pathogens in Urban Stormwater Runoff: Occurrence and Removal via Vegetated Biochar-Amended Biofilters.” Water Research 207 (2021): 117829.

Boehm, Alexandria B, Katherine E Graham, and Wiley C Jennings. “Can We Swim yet? Systematic Review, Meta-Analysis, and Risk Assessment of Aging Sewage in Surface Waters.” Environmental Science & Technology 52, no. 17 (2018): 9634–45.

Rugh, Megyn B, Stanley B Grant, Wei-Cheng Hung, Jennifer A Jay, Emily A Parker, Marina Feraud, Dong Li, Sumant Avasarala, Patricia A Holden, Haizhou Liu, Megan A. Rippy, Laurie C. Van De Werfhorst, Timnit Kefela, Jian Peng, Stella Shao, Katherine E. Graham, Alexandria B. Boehm, Samuel Choi, Sanjay K. Mohanty, and Yiping Cao. “Highly Variable Removal of Pathogens, Antibiotic Resistance Genes, Conventional Fecal Indicators and Human-Associated Fecal Source Markers in a Pilot-Scale Stormwater Biofilter Operated under Realistic Stormflow Conditions.” Water Research 219 (2022): 118525.

Genomic information about microbes, and particularly pathogens, in the environment has yet to be fully utilized in the field of quantitative microbial risk assessment (QMRA). However, understanding how a microbe’s gene content affects its fate and transport, has the potential to refine and improve our estimates of public health risk, particularly in the context of the urban water cycle. Research in our group focuses on the development of standardized third-generation sequencing methods to inform health risk assessment due to exposure to pathogens in the environment.

Graham, Katherine E., Aaron J. Prussin, Linsey C. Marr, Lauren M. Sassoubre, Alexandria B. Boehm. “Microbial Community Structure of Sea Spray Aerosols at Three California Beaches.” FEMS Microbiology Ecology 94, no. 3 (2018).