Microbial and Chemical Processes in Natural and Engineered Systems

Honoring Pioneers and Leaders
Philip Singer (1942-2020), Edward Bouwer (1955-2019), James J. Morgan (1932-2020),
Deborah Swackhamer (1954-2021), and Michael Aitken (1956-2020)

In the last few years, the environmental engineering and science community has lost several of our preeminent leaders and pioneers, and this special issue honors them: Phil Singer, Ed Bouwer, Jim Morgan, Deb Swackhamer, and Mike Aitken. All five were accomplished researchers, as well as dedicated mentors, teachers, advisors, and colleagues. In the words of Greg Characklis, “building a sense of community was very important to Phil, and our department and School will continue to benefit from his efforts every day through the strong bonds that he built with alumni and colleagues, both throughout academia and in the professional world.” The same can be said of all five.

Building on the contributions of these five giants in our field, this special issue of Environmental Engineering Science seeks high-quality, high-impact papers that focus on the innovative microbial and chemical processes for addressing both classic problems (e.g., nutrient recovery and wastewater treatment) as well as emerging problems (e.g., biodiversity loss, plastic pollution, and antibiotic resistance genes). We also encourage contributions that leverage new technologies, leverage data science and machine learning approaches, Omics tools, functional genomics, synthetic microbiology, bioinformatics for addressing the environmental problems. Example topics include:

1. Fate of recalcitrant chemicals, for example, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances and microplastics
2. Environmental convergence solutions for mitigating greenhouse gases; the nitrogen cycle; sustainable water purification OR resource recovery systems
3. Modeling biofilm–material interfaces in natural and built environments
4. Computer vision tools for pathogenic biofilm image analysis
5. Artificial Intelligence approaches for analyzing biofilms, metagenomics of the microbiome community
6. Predictive tools for analyzing biofilms in natural and built environments
7. Bioinformatics tools for biofilm engineering

Full manuscripts will undergo peer review and must be submitted online by February 28, 2023.

Visit our website to view the Journal and previous special issues.

Editorial questions? Contact the Catherine Peters, Editor-in-Chief, or Ramana Gadhamshetty, Associate Editor.

Manuscript preparation or technical questions? Contact the Editorial Administrator Abigail Cook Dommer.