Course Descriptions

Pathways to Water Sector Decarbonization

The water sector is in the middle of a paradigm shift toward decarbonization and digitalization, and this course discusses the emerging “One Water” framework that offers a holistic and integrated approach to consider all water resources as one water to achieve reliable, sustainable, and secure and resilient water systems. The goal is to create pathways for decarbonization while building OneWater systems for circular water economy, water resiliency, and socioeconomic equity. The course identifies the different sources of carbon emissions during the water utilization cycle, teaches emission quantification tools, and investigates mechanisms, processes, technologies, and policies that will reduce carbon footprint and potentially lead the sector to become energy positive and carbon negative.

Resource Recovery for a Circular Economy

This course focuses on emerging science and technologies that enable the transition from our traditional linear economy (take, make, waste) to a new circular economy (reduce, reuse, recycle). It will discuss the principles of circular economy and example technologies and business case studies that successfully converted traditional waste materials or environmental pollutants such as wastewater, food waste, plastics, e-waste, and CO2, etc. into valued-added products including energy, fuels, chemicals, and food products, etc.
Recommended: previous coursework in chemistry and microbiology

Biology, Electrochemistry and Technology

The interconnections between biology and electrochemistry are widely observed in nature and can be harnessed for engineering applications. This course explores the fundamental mechanisms and related analytical tools used in microbial electron transfer, redox reactions, microbial corrosion and other processes. It will also discuss interdisciplinary microbial and electrochemical technologies that are used in remote sensing, remediation, renewable energy, wastewater treatment, artificial photosynthesis, and carbon valorization, etc. It will train students on interdisciplinary thinking and problem-solving skills, as well as how to connect graduate research with career development.

Recommended: previous coursework in chemistry and microbiology

Engineering Design for Sustainable Development

This course will focus on the sustainable design of urban water infrastructure. Students will use software packages and other design tools to design water/wastewater distribution and treatment systems, including new processes that incorporate energy and resource recovery. The projects are considered from concept development to detailed design with special considerations on sustainability and resilience. The course aims to provide connections between class teaching and real-world problem solving.

Bioenergy and Biochemical Production

Waste valorization has become a major goal for biomass wet waste management. This course will discuss the fundamental theories and applied technologies used in production and conversion of wet waste into bioenergy and other value-added products. The class will conduct quantitative evaluations of resource and energy available in the waste materials and study conversion technologies include fuel alcohol synthesis, biodiesel catalysis, anaerobic digestion, microbial fuel cells and microbial electrochemical systems, biohydrogen production, metal and nutrients recovery, polymer recovery, etc.
Recommended: previous coursework in chemistry and microbiology

Emerging Technologies: Microbial Electrochemistry Platform

Discuss the fundamental microbial electrochemistry theories and applied technologies that emerged during the past decade for environmental and energy applications. The microbial electrochemical technology is one the most interdisciplinary platforms that integrate microbiology, electrochemistry, material science, and multiple engineering disciplines together, and it has been used in different areas such as wastewater treatment, water reuse and desalination, remote sensing, soil and groundwater remediation, energy and chemical recovery, carbon capture and utilization, etc. This class will introduce the fundamental theories associated with the platform and discuss different engineering applications developed in the past 15 years. It will also train students on interdisciplinary thinking and problem solving skills, as well as how to connect graduate research with career development.
Recommended: previous coursework in chemistry and microbiology.

Environmental Microbiology

An introductory microbiology course for graduate/undergraduate students with no prior formal instruction in microbiology. This course provides an overview of the theory and application of microbiology in engineering fields. The initial lectures will introduce the fundamentals of microbial structure, function, nutrition, growth and ecology, and the following lectures will cover the application of these microbial principles to environmental systems.
Recommended: previous coursework in chemistry.

Introduction to Environmental and Sustainability Engineering

An introductory graduate/undergraduate course that provides a broad overview of the environmental engineering and pollution control system. The course offers a unique systems approach to environmental engineering, examining the source-to-receptor feedback loop for pollution control. Environmental engineering fundamentals are presented in a unified manner, cross-cutting atmospheric, wastewater and sub-surface systems. Four laboratory exercises provide direct experiential learning of key concepts.

Biological Processes in Water Quality Engineering

A comprehensive course that covers the theory and application of biological processes used in water quality engineering, with an emphasis on municipal and industrial wastewaters and biosolids. The initial lectures will introduce material on microbial energetics, diversity, and kinetics. The reminder of the courses will involve the application of fundamental principles to treatment and energy recovery processes, including bioreactor configurations and design considerations.
Recommended: previous coursework in chemistry and microbiology.

Global Technology, Business and Culture

This course will explore and compare the cultural attitudes between American and Chinese towards business, technology and the environment.  In this study abroad course we shall 1) give an overview of Chinese business practices, 2) examine the most important green technology-driven businesses in China and 3) give an overview of Chinese culture and etiquette as they relate to business practice within the context of business and organizations that deal with environmental issues.