Researchers in the department are joining the global effort to stop the spread of COVID-19 by investigating the unintentional consequences of the virus.
Dr. Xingmao “Samuel” Ma is working with a team to determine whether conventional chlorine-based disinfectants can remove COVID-19 from domestic wastewater systems in infected neighborhoods. This shows how water quality parameters can affect the performance of these disinfectants.
In collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Shankar Chellam is monitoring raw sewage and the air in the proximity of wastewater treatment plants for COVID-19. Sewage measurements could serve as an early warning of the community spread and presence of COVID-19. Early detection has the potential to better prepare public health professionals to respond to spread in the population.
Dr. Xiubin “Bruce” Wang and Dr. Yunlong Zhang are investigating the transmissibility of a pandemic through the freight transportation system to reveal places where the transmission has the largest effect on the spread and on the network operational efficiency.
Wang and doctoral student Chaolun Ma are researching how to control the hidden spread of COVID-19 and the general conditions needed to get the pandemic under control through various methods such as community sampling or temperature checks at mass gatherings.
Dr. Ali Mostafavi is working to better understand, predict and effectively respond to the risk of infectious disease outbreaks in urban areas and will analyze the data through spatial modeling, network analysis and machine learning techniques to reveal hidden pandemic spread risks in urban areas.
In the beginning stages of the pandemic, Dr. Qi Ying worked with colleagues on accurately predicting COVID-19 cases and deaths in China. He also researched the effect of traffic emission control on air quality during the lockdown period in China.