Bioaerosols

Spring Break travelers reflect on disaster recovery, a different approach to transportation, and water quality challenges after week abroad

Students from the International Disaster Reconnaissance Studies course walk through ruined buildings in Old Beichuan, China. The city has been left as a memorial to those killed when it was rocked by the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake in central China. The site was one of the places students visited in China and Japan over Spring Break as they considered the impact of disasters and how communities rebuilt. (Photo Courtesy: Lynnae Luettich and Katie Popp)

For several dozen School of Civil and Environmental Engineering students, Spring Break was a packed week of mind- and perspective-stretching experiences in South America, Europe and Asia. The students worked and explored alongside professors and graduate students as part of three classes affiliated with Tech’s global engineering leadership minor.

Wednesday, March 27, 2019

The next frontier in environmental engineering: Brown tackles public health issues through the microscope

"The next frontier in environmental engineering: Brown tackles public health issues." Joe Brown and a student test environmental samples in his lab. (Photo: Gary Meek, Design: Sarah Collins)

Joe Brown’s research is largely focused on water contamination and its impact on public health. He travels to communities around the world measuring microbes in each environment to gather exposure data and determines what it means for the health and safety of residents. In a recent trip to India, Brown found aerosolized Giardia and Salmonella, pathogens not normally known to be transmitted via air. This discovery creates a new challenge in environmental engineering, one where microbes associated with water and sanitation are transmitted via the air (aerosols), potentially leading to new pathways of disease transmission.

Monday, December 11, 2017

Danger in the air? Brown wins NSF CAREER grant to find out

Assistant Professor Joe Brown has won an Early Career Development Award from the National Science Foundation. These so-called CAREER grants recognize promising young faculty with funds to help them establish the research director of their careers. (Photo: Jess Hunt-Ralston)

When Joe Brown went to India last summer, he was hoping to collect samples that could help answer some questions he’d been thinking about for a while. His years studying sanitation and global health had given him the idea that the open sewers and overflowing latrines common in the dense cities of the developing world could be linked with disease through an unusual mechanism: airborne transmission of pathogens.

Friday, February 24, 2017

#GTBolivia: Spring Break research trip aims to make water safer in Bolivia

Students collecting water samples along Bolivia's Choqueyapu River.

While many Georgia Tech students enjoyed some time away from classes during Spring Break, students in Joe Brown's "Environmental Technology in the Developing World" class were working to improve the lives of Bolivians. Join us on their journey, through the students' own words and pictures.

Friday, April 1, 2016
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School of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Georgia Institute of Technology
Mason Building, 790 Atlantic Drive, Atlanta, GA 30332-0355
Phone: 404-894-2201
Fax: 404-894-2278