• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer
Logo for the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Michigan
  • Giving
  • News and Events
  • Contact

  • About
    • History
    • Strategic Directions
    • Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
      • CEE DEI Committee
      • DEI Resources
      • Have a concern?
    • Alumni
      • CEE Friends Association
        • CEEFA Board
      • Award Winners
    • Giving
      • Giving Legacy
    • Leadership and Governance
    • Faculty Search
      • Faculty Position in Environmental Engineering
      • Faculty Position in Intelligent Systems
    • Contact
      • Student Services Contacts
      • Master’s Advising Contacts
      • Undergraduate Advising Contacts
  • Undergraduate Studies
    • BSE Degree in Civil Engineering
    • BSE Degree in Environmental Engineering
    • Minor in Civil Engineering
    • Minor in Environmental Engineering
    • FocusCEE
      • Community Policy and Planning
      • Smart Cities
      • Sustainability
    • Undergraduate Opportunities
      • Undergraduate Externship
      • Student Research and Employment
        • CEE SURE/SROP Projects 2023
    • Schedule an Advising Appointment
    • Declare Your Major
    • Careers in CEE
      • What is a Civil or Environmental Engineer?
      • Career Pathways
      • Employers of CEE Graduates
      • How to Recruit CEE Graduates
    • Undergraduate Student Advisory Council
    • Student Life
  • Graduate Studies
    • Master’s Programs
    • PhD Programs
      • PhD Mentoring Framework
      • PhD Candidate Roster
    • Pelham Scholars Program
    • Online Learning
      • Construction Engineering and Management MasterTrack™
    • Admissions Information
      • International Applicants
      • Sequential Undergraduate/Graduate Studies (SUGS) Applicants
    • Graduate Handbook
    • Graduate Student Advisory Council
    • Student Life
  • People
    • Faculty
      • Affiliated Faculty
      • Core Faculty
      • Emeritus Faculty
    • Postdocs
    • Researchers
    • Staff
      • Administrative
      • Finance
      • Human Resources
      • IT & Web
      • Laboratory Technicians
      • Purchasing
      • Student Services
  • Research
    • New Grants
    • Civil Infrastructure Systems
      • Construction Engineering and Management
      • Geotechnical Engineering
      • Intelligent Systems
      • Next Generation Transportation Systems
      • Structural and Materials Engineering
    • Environment and Water Resources
      • Ecohydrology and Hydraulic Engineering
      • Energy and Clean Technology
      • Environmental Chemistry and Soil Physics
      • Environmental Microbiology and Biotechnology
    • Smart Infrastructure Finance
    • Urban Collaboratory
    • Facilities
      • Advanced Materials Research
      • Cementitious Composites
      • Center of Excellence in Bridges and Structures
      • Computational Community Resilience
      • Computational Structural Simulation
      • Construction Engineering Lab
      • Geotechnical Engineering Labs
      • Intelligent Structural Technology
      • Next Generation Infrastructure
      • Next Generation Transportation Systems Research Facilities
      • Pavement Research Center of Excellence
      • Structural Engineering Lab
  • Resources
    • Shipping
    • Purchasing
      • Purchasing Frequently Asked Questions
    • Reimbursement
    • IT Resources
    • Lab Safety
      • Lab Safety Basics
      • Minimum Training Requirements
    • Lab Requests and Procedures
    • Room Requests
    • Faculty Intranet
    • Giving
    • News and Events
    • Contact

PhD students receive ITiMS Fellowships

Students received ITiMS Fellowships through the University of Michigan's School of Public Health for the 2019-2020 school year.

Written by: Civil and Environmental Engineering

March 26, 2019

Two CEE PhD students, Shilva Shrestha and Kathryn Langenfeld, along with School of Public Health PhD student Leon Espira, have received the Integrated Training in Microbial Systems (ITiMS) Fellowship through the School of Public Health.

The ITiMS fellowship provides two years of funding to University of Michigan doctoral students conducting research on microbial systems. The interdisciplinary program provides training to advance participants’ research in laboratory sciences, population sciences and mathematical modeling. The aim of the fellowship is to train future scientists who will design and implement novel prevention, diagnostic and treatment strategies stemming from a deep understanding of the impact of microbial communities on human and environmental health.

Portrait of Kathryn Langenfeld
Kathryn Langenfeld

Kathryn Langenfeld investigates the role of phages in the dissemination of antibiotic resistance genes to the environment from wastewater treatment plants. Bacteria are able to share genes horizontally to surrounding bacteria. One mechanism of horizontal gene transfer is transduction, where phages incorporate genes from their bacterial host and spread those genes to the subsequently infected bacteria. Langenfeld will quantitatively sequence phage nucleic acids to analyze the resistance genes harbored within phages and their absolute abundance throughout a wastewater treatment plant. She will develop a model to estimate the rate of transduction and the impact of phage-host interactions on the dissemination of resistance genes. Langenfeld is advised by Assistant Professor Krista Wigginton.

Portrait of Shilva Shrestha
Shilva Shrestha

Shilva Shrestha’s research focuses on recovering high-value chemicals from organic waste, particularly brewery waste. She is focusing on brewery waste because the increase in the number of breweries in the U.S. is creating considerable challenges for waste management. In rural communities, breweries are often the largest producers of wastewater to be treated by municipal water resource recovery facilities, with such discharge fees constituting 8-22% of the total utility operating costs. Implementing biotechnologies to recover resources from waste provides opportunities for revenue in addition to reduced environmental impacts through waste treatment. Shrestha is working towards developing a technology that relies on anaerobic fermentation by a mixed-culture microbial community for recovering medium chain carboxylic acids (MCCAs) from brewery waste. MCCAs are used as platform chemicals serving as building blocks for production of liquid fuels, and several other industrial and agricultural products. Shrestha is advised by Professor Lutgarde Raskin.

Portrait of Leon Espira
Leon Espira

Leon Espira’s research focuses on estimating disease risk and understanding how disease exposure pathways change following treatment of urban wastewater used for crop irrigation. He applies an interdisciplinary approach coupling laboratory methods, spatial analysis and mathematical modeling via Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment (QMRA) models. Espira’s study area is situated in the Mezquital Valley, an agricultural valley that receives untreated wastewater from Mexico City through a series of uncovered canals. The wastewater is used for irrigation, which leads to high levels of pathogen exposure either through direct contact by farmers or indirect contact by community members. Espira’s co-advisor for ITiMS is CEE Professor Nancy Love.


MEDIA CONTACT

Portrait of Michele Santillan

Michele Santillan

Marketing Communications Specialist
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

(734) 748-1283

mssantil@umich.edu

Explore: Awards Civil and Environmental Engineering Students

Footer

Logo for Michigan Engineering at the University of Michigan

  • Giving
  • News and Events
  • Contact
  • Sign up for our newsletter
  • U-M Engineering Home
  • Strategic Vision
  • Graduate and Professional
  • Undergraduate
  • U-M Engineering Research News
  • U-M Home

  • Giving
  • News and Events
  • Contact
  • Sign up for our newsletter

© 2023 The Regents of the University of Michigan Ann Arbor, MI 48109 USA Privacy Policy | Non-Discrimination Policy | Campus Safety

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • YouTube