CESE (College of Environmental Science and Engineering) hosted a series of academic lectures between 7th and 19th of June. Dr. Amy J. Pruden and Dr. Hong Wang from Virginia Tech, and Dr. Wen Zhang from New Jersey Institute of Technology were invited to deliver lectures on their research work, and received warmly welcome from the staff and students of CESE.Dr. Amy J. Pruden, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Virginia Tech, has gained remarkable achievements in the fields of applied environmental microbiology and environmental engineering. Her research has led to many publications in top journals (e.g., ES&T and Water Research) and prestigious awards, i.e., National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award, ES&T Best Paper Award in 2006 (second runner-up).

In her first talk given on 7th June, entitled “Antibiotic resistance genes as environmental contaminants: Source-tracking and management approaches”, Dr. Pruden introduced the distribution and transportation of antibiotic resistance genes in aquatic systems, as well as the implications on water infrastructure and public health. In her second talk given with Dr. Hong Wang (postdoc in Virginia Tech, working in Dr. Pruden’s group) on 19th June, entitled “Harnessing the Microbiome to Control Pathogens in Our Water Infrastructure”, they further shared their recent findings on the occurrence and inhibition of opportunistic pathogens in waterworks. As this topic is highly related to the public health, the participants had extensive and intensive discussions on it.

Dr. Wen Zhang, Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, New Jersey Institute of Technology since 2012. Prior to joining NJIT, Wen worked as a research engineer at Georgia Institute of Technology, where he received his PhD Degree. During his doctoral studies, Wen has received 2011 Simon Karecki Award from the Global Research Collaboration and SEMATECH Engineering Research Center for Environmentally Benign Semiconductor Manufacturing for his great academic performance on semiconductor nanomaterial research. Recently, he received the 2012 CH2M Hill/AEESP Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award. On 7th of June, Dr. Zhang gave an invited lecture entitled “Measuring and imaging the environmental behavior and biological interactions of engineered metallic nanoparticles”. In this talk, Dr. Zhang introduced his excellent work on the complex issues on engineered nanoparticles (ENPS), especially on characterization of the environmental behavior and quantification of cellular impacts on the interfacial phenomena (i.e., aggregation, ion release and adsorption) of ENPs from chemical and physical perspectives, which could further help the understanding of the potential toxicity induced by ENPs exposure.