Dr. Colleen Naughton (Conference Co-Chairperson and Co-PI) is an Assistant Professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering at University of California (UC) Merced, AEESP Government Affairs committee member, and former Science and Technology Policy Fellow through the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) (2017-2019). She helped lead #AEESPTeach and crowdsourcing of virtual teaching resources on a google sheet and the AEESP website for Environmental Engineering and Science Professors during the transition to online learning with the pandemic. Dr. Naughton’s research focuses on designing sustainable and culturally sensitive food-energy-water systems.
Co-PI Naughton recently received two COVID-19 emergency seed grants: (1) a $50k seed grant from the UC Center for Information Technology Research in Service of Society (CITRIS) to conduct an “Integrated Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment and Geospatial Analysis of SARS-CoV-2 in Wastewater for Vulnerable Populations”, (2) UC Merced seed grant from national lab fees on “Adapting the food supply chain to the COVID-19 induced shock and beyond for resilient future.” She has published a perspective piece on COVID-19:
Dr. Naughton received a BS. in Civil Engineering with Environmental Concentration from Purdue University, an M.S. in Civil Engineering from the University of South Florida, and a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering with Certificate in Water, Health, Sustainability from the University of South Florida.