In 2018, smoke from the cataclysmic Northern California firestorm known as the Camp Fire turned the Bay Area air toxic, shuttering multiple businesses and schools, and inhibiting outdoor activities for millions of people.
Concerns about access to clean, potable water are projected to rise with the ever-drying climate and increase in global population.
Some forms of energy are harmful to our environment, where others are not as harmful. We harm our environment by adding pollutants into the air when we transfer energy from one form to another.
My mentor, Negin Ashoori, PhD, from the Luthy Group in the Civil and Environmental Engineering department at Stanford University, researches the removal of pollutants from stormwater passed through different media, such as wood-chips, sand, and biochar, identifying the various types of bacteria t