Lorelay became passionate about the connections between water, health, and society while interning at the World Health Organization in Switzerland in 2019, and she has continued to explore those themes in her work ever since. Her doctoral research examined the fate of wastewater contaminants across multiple scales. Her projects have included evaluating failing onsite septic systems in rural Alabama, studying…

Luke received his B.S. in chemistry from Centre College and worked as an analytical chemist for three years before returning to graduate school. He then received his Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from the University of Arizona in 2024. Luke’s research at Arizona was primarily focused on optimizing membrane distillation (MD) for potable water reuse in off-grid applications. Much of this…

Jessica has a M.S. in Environmental Data Science and a B.S. in Environmental Engineering from the University of Southern California. Prior to joining full-time Jessica did an internship with Trussell in which she developed a brochure for California’s direct potable reuse regulations and provided regulatory support to East Valley Water District. During her undergraduate degree, she participated in air pollution…

Matthew Demer has a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of California, Davis. For his senior design project, he modeled existing and proposed alternative technologies for the recycling of air and water on the International Space Station. He has contributed to chemistry research on organometallic catalysis at The Scripps Research Institute, and on electrocatalytic conversion of carbon dioxide to…

Samantha received her B.S. in environmental engineering in 2016 from the University of Florida. She then conducted her graduate work at Virginia Tech while working at the Hampton Roads Sanitation District. She worked at HRSD’s 1-MGD demonstration-scale IPR facility optimizing advanced treatment processes including coagulation/flocculation/ sedimentation, ozone, BAF, and GAC operations. She also participated in extensive pilot testing to improve…

Aarthi Mohan is a Senior Engineer (Category II) at Trussell’s San Diego office. Her interests lie in the nexus of drinking water, water reuse and analytical instrumentation. Previously, she worked with the Southern Nevada Water Authority’s (SNWA) Water Quality Research & Development Division contributing at various capacities (lead/assist) to projects sponsored by the Water Research Foundation (#5035, 5031, 5053, 5210,…

Michael Sherer has a B.S. in Civil Engineering from the University of Alabama and an M.S.E. in Environmental and Water Resources Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin. Prior to joining Trussell, Michael worked as a water/wastewater process engineer in Texas for over 8 years. In that role, Michael has worked on numerous treatment plant projects (both greenfield and…

Oliver Reynolds has a B.S. in Civil Engineering – Environmental from California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. While at Cal Poly Pomona Oliver completed his senior project on environmental remediation of surface water bodies in California. He helped research and design an integrated solution of floating islands and bioretention basins to remove excess nutrients from surface water bodies and improve water…

Emily Townsend has a B.S. in Marine Science from the University of South Carolina and a M.S. in Environmental Engineering from the University of Southern California. While pursuing her master’s degree, Emily worked in the Marine Trace Element Laboratory (MTEL) at USC and investigated the biogeochemical cycling of important trace metal nutrients, like iron, cadmium, and zinc, throughout the global…

Ben Christensen has a B.S. in Environmental Engineering and an M.S. in Civil and Environmental Engineering from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. While at Cal Poly, Ben aided in a bench scale forward osmosis desalination study and made contributions to an algae biofuel project. Before returning for the master’s degree, he spent time as a lab technician for…