Environmental Health Engineering
Just as the environment plays a critical role in human health, human activities affect the health of ecosystems—and these two entities are intimately interconnected. Duke's research in environmental health engineering addresses the consequences of society’s production and use of energy and materials, emphasizing approaches to protecting the health of human populations and predicting, monitoring and managing impacts on air, water and other global cycles.
We work closely with Duke's Nicholas School of Environment in numerous research and educational initiatives.
Research Areas
- Contaminant transport and transformation
- Environmental sensing
- Environmental implications of emerging materials
- Microbiome engineering
- Environmental toxicology and adaption
- Data analytics for environment and health
- Water, sanitation and hygiene
- Atmospheric transport and chemistry
- Waste-to-energy and resource recovery
- Environmental risk assessment
- Novel technologies for air and water quality
- Geo-health
MAJOR centers & initiatives
Duke's externally funded research centers and training programs in environmental health engineering include:
- Center for Environmental Implications of NanoTechnology (CEINT)
- Duke Center for Environmental Exposomics
- Duke Center for Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WaSH-AID)
- Duke Superfund Research Center
- Integrative Bioinformatics for Investigating and Engineering Microbiomes (IBIEM)
- Partnership for International Research and Education (PIRE) in Water and Commerce
Related Study Opportunities
PhD in Environmental Engineering
Offers study tracks in:
MS in Environmental Engineering
Offers study tracks in:
MEng in Environmental Engineering
Duke's MEng in Environmental Engineering offers concentrations in:
- Environmental Engineering and Public Policy
- Environmental Health Engineering
- Ecohydrology and Environmental Fluid Dynamics
MEng in Risk Engineering
Duke's MEng in Risk Engineering offers a concentration in Environment and Population Health
Graduate Certificate & Training Programs
Integrated Toxicology and Environmental Health Program (ITEHP)
Integrative Bioinformatics for Investigating and Engineering Microbiomes (IBIEM)
NanoHEAT (Cooperative Training Program in Nanomaterials Hazard and Exposure Assessment Traineeships)
Undergraduate Research
Duke offers several BSE degree programs for students interested in studying and conducting research in environmental health engineering:
- Major in Environmental Engineering
- Major in Civil Engineering in the Environmental Engineering & Water Resources study track
- Dual major in Civil and Biomedical Engineering with a focus on environmental and biomedical toxicology
Duke Engineering also offers summer Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REUs) for students enrolled at other institutions.
Primary Faculty
Ana P. Barros
Edmund T. Pratt, Jr. School Distinguished Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Research Interests: Physics of water cycle processes in mountainous regions with a focus on cloud formation and precipitation; remote sensing of the environment using microwave and infrared sensors; long– range predictability and risk analysis of natural hazards; computational environmental fluid...
Michael Howard Bergin
Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Research Interests: Aerosols are generated by a variety of natural and anthropogenic sources. I am interested in the processes that emit, transform and deposit particulate matter. A current focus of my research is how particles in the atmosphere directly modify the surface radiation balance of the...
Fred K. Boadu
Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Research Interests: How the engineering, environmental and petrophysical properties of porous media (soils, fractured rock, biological tissues) affect measurable geophysical responses, and subsequently develop methodologies by which these properties can be obtained from non-invasive geophysical...
Mark Edward Borsuk
Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Research Interests: Mathematical models for integrating scientific information on natural, technical, and social systems; Bayesian network modeling with regular application to environmental and human health regulation and decision making; novel approaches to climate change assessment, combining...
Andrew Bragg
Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Research Interests: Fundamental and applied problems in fluid dynamics, especially turbulence, and its role in environmental systems.
David Carlson
Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Research Interests: Machine learning, predictive modeling, health data science, statistical neuroscience
Nathaniel Chaney
Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Research Interests: Hydrology, Earth system science, soil science, ecology, geomorphology, numerical modeling, high performance computing, machine learning, environmental data delivery and data assimilation.
Marc Deshusses
Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Research Interests: Design, analysis and application of remediation, waste-to-energy and decentralized sanitation processes, including novel reactors and processes for air, water and solid wastes treatment.
P. Lee Ferguson
Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Research Interests: Environmental analytical chemistry and applications of high resolution mass spectrometry to trace organic contaminant analysis, environmental fate and effects of carbon nanomaterials in the aquatic environment, proteomics in environmental toxicology, and mechanisms of...
Claudia K. Gunsch
Theodore Kennedy Associate Professor
Research Interests: Identifying genetic adaptation mechanisms resulting from anthropogenic contaminant exposure; developing biosensors capable of pathogen and contaminant detection in water and air; studying the impact of emerging contaminants on aquatic microbial ecology; and the development of...
Christine Ogilvie Hendren
Assistant Research Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Heileen Hsu-Kim
Sternberg Family Professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering
Research Interests: Aquatic chemistry and geochemistry, trace element environmental chemistry, nanogeoscience, mercury biogeochemistry, water-particle surface processes.
Zbigniew J. Kabala
Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Research Interests: Stochastic and deterministic theory of fluid flow and contaminant transport in saturated and unsaturated heterogeneous porous media, theory of related measurements, field and laboratory studies in subsurface hydrogeology, stochastic fields and processes, numerical and analytical...
David E. Schaad
Professor of the Practice of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Research Interests: Sustainable engineering, community development, water and wastewater treatment design, stormwater retention/detention and treatment design, hazardous waste remediation, urban hydrology, constructed wetland and stream restoration design, ecological stabilization, sustainable...
Mark Wiesner
James B. Duke Distinguished Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Research Interests: Membrane processes, nanostructured materials, transport and fate of nanomaterials in the environment, colloidal and interfacial processes, and environmental systems analysis
Secondary Faculty
Richard T. Di Giulio
Sally Kleberg Distinguished Professor of Environmental Toxicology
Martin Doyle
Professor in the Environmental Sciences and Policy Division
Research Interests: Water resources and policy Hydrology and Hydraulics Infrastructure finance Internet of Water
David E. Hinton
Nicholas Distinguished Professor of Environmental Quality
Dana E. Hunt
Associate Professor of Microbial Ecology
Marc A. Jeuland
Associate Professor in the Sanford School of Public Policy
Joel Meyer
Truman and Nellie Semans/Alex Brown and Sons Associate Professor of Molecular Environmental Toxicology
Curtis J. Richardson
John O. Blackburn Distinguished Professor
Heather M. Stapleton
Ronie-Richele Garcia-Johnson Distinguished Professor
Avner Vengosh
Professor of Earth and Ocean Sciences
Research Faculty
Lisa L Satterwhite
Assistant Research Professor in the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering
Research Interests: Satterwhite studies the genomics and epigenetics of environmental exposures in populations with clear health disparity. Her group identified the first genomic signature for pesticide exposure and is developing simple blood tests to diagnose early stage asymptomatic...
Adjunct Faculty
Melanie Auffan
Adjunct Assistant Professor
Jean-Yves Bottero
Adjunct Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Research Interests: Physical chemistry of organic, inorganic, and heterogeneous contaminants; physicochemical properties of surfaces; mechanisms of coagulation and flocculation; water and wastewater treatment.
Dwayne Elias
Adjunct Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Thilo Hofmann
Adjunct Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Research Interests: Hydrogeology, applied geology, colloids, modeling, inorganic and organic pollutants.
Amilcare Porporato
Adjunct Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Research Interests: Near-wall turbulence, nonlinear analysis of hydrologic time series, stochastic soil moisture dynamics and water balance, soil-atmosphere interaction, and ecohydrology, complexity in the environment, sustainable use of soil and water resources.
Jerome C. Rose
Adjunct Associate Professor
Research Interests: Relation between nanostructure of materials and their reactivity and toxicity. Characterization of the structure of ultra-small (colloids and molecular clusters), and/or amorphous and highly divided materials down to the molecular scale.
Daniel Vallero
Adjunct Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Research Interests: Measurement and modeling research in environmental systems, including high throughput risk screening, tracer studies, development of pollution collection devices, and biosystem engineering. Life cycle analysis and sustainable design.
Emeritus Faculty
Miguel A. Medina
Profesor Emeritus of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Research Interests: Contaminant transport hydrology, specifically modeling flow and mass transport across surface/subsurface interfaces and interactions; and international water issues which include transboundary contaminant transport.
J. Jeffrey Peirce
Associate Professor Emeritus of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Research Interests: Environmental engineering, cyberinfrastructure networks, sensors, geotropospheric interactions, engineering systems optimization.