Mi Nguyen PhD – Environmental Engineering Senior Researcher
Dr. Mi Nguyen’s research focuses on water and sanitation disinfection treatments that are low-cost, effective, and applicable in low and middle income countries. Her PhD work is about sunlight inactivation mechanisms of pathogens in open-water treatment wetlands, and its application as an additional barrier to remove pathogens in wastewater before emitting to effluents. In her first post-doc research, Mi studied the inactivation and regrowth of bacterial pathogens in Blue Diversion Autarky Toilet, an on-site treatment providing a safe and affordable technology for people who lack access to sewer-based sanitation. Mi has recently conducted her new research projects in Vietnam: the first project is to understand the governance network of urban sanitation management in Vietnam, and the second project is about the ability of using anaerobic digestion to treat fecal sludge. For the next step, Mi is currently building a new project on Antidrug Resistance Genes in fecal sludge throughout Vietnam.
Education
BEng – Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology – 2008
MS, PhD – University of California, Berkeley– 2010, 2015
Research Interests
Water and wastewater treatment
Sanitation
Fecal sludge management
Waterborne pathogens
Disinfection, Regrowth
Antidrug Resistance Genes
Selected publications
Nguyen, M. T.; Jasper, J. T.; Nelson, K. L. “Sunlight inactivation of fecal indicator bacteria in an open-water natural wastewater treatment system: Modeling endogenous and exogenous inactivation rates in the presence of light-attenuating compounds and photosensitizers”. Water Research. 2015
Hendrickson, T.; Nguyen, M. T., Nelson, K. L. “Life-cycle Perspectives for Urban Decentralized Wastewater Treatment: Environmental Performance of Wastewater Systems”. Environ. Sci. Technol. 2015
Silverman, A.; Nguyen, M. T., Nelson, K. L. “Sunlight inactivation of viruses in an open-water natural wastewater treatment system: Modeling endogenous and exogenous inactivation rates in the presence of light-attenuating compounds and photosensitizers”. Environ. Sci. Technol. 2015
Nguyen, M. T.; Silverman, I. A.; Nelson, K. L. “Sunlight inactivation of MS2 coliphage in the absence of photosensitizers: Modeling the endogenous inactivation rate using a photoaction spectrum”. Environ. Sci. Technol. 2014
Jasper, J. T.; Nguyen, M. T.; Jones, Z. L.; Ismail, N. S.; Sedlak, D.L.; Sharp, J. O.; Luthy, R. G.; Horne, A. J.; Nelson, K. L. “Unit process wetlands for treatment of municipal wastewater effluent”. Environ. Engi.
Sci. 2013