Engineering Microbiomes: Insights from Drinking Water and Indoor Air

Recent advances in big data and high-throughput gene sequencing techniques have expanded our understanding of microbial communities and their centrality to human health and environmental processes. With this improved understanding, it is becoming feasible to intelligently and robustly engineer beneficial microbial communities. In this presentation, I will share details from three projects that demonstrate how a big data approach can lead to new insights about microbial communities and lead to engineering solutions. I will begin by presenting my work on the fungal communities of the built environment, demonstrating how gene expression can connect fungal exposure in buildings with human health and how machine learning can distinguish between the fungal community signature of homes with and without mold damage. I will then present my research uncovering the parameters shaping viral diversity and infection networks in drinking water distribution systems. I will conclude the talk by generalizing this approach to intentionally tailor microbial communities of engineered systems to ensure human and environmental health.

Bio

Dr. Bridget Hegarty is an assistant professor in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at Case Western Reserve University. Before coming to CWRU, Dr. Hegarty was a postdoc at the University of Michigan. She earned her Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from Yale University (2019) and graduated from Cornell University with a B.S. in Biological Engineering (2013). Dr. Hegarty's research focuses on understanding the microbial communities of engineered environments, particularly indoor air and drinking water, to ensure human and environmental health. In conjunction with her research, she also seeks to reduce barriers to groups historically excluded from STEM. Dr. Hegarty is an advisor for gradSWE at CWRU; and as a postdoc, she designed and crowdfunded a wearable STEM education kit, the SpinWheel, to raise money for engineering outreach.