Spring 2026
Designing and Testing Data Collection and Science Communication Tools for Safe Drinking Water
Instructors:
- Dr. Katya Cherukumilli
- Jessamine Li (HCDE 1st year PhD student)
The purpose of this Spring 2026 DRG is to advance two ongoing research projects focused on increasing access to safe drinking water in institutional settings.
1- Drinking Water Infrastructure on UW Campus: Through this project, students will engage with administrators in UW Environmental Health and Safety (EH&S) and UW Facilities (UWF) to: (1) design and physically test a mobile-based application to conduct building walkthroughs and collect data on public drinking water infrastructure and (2) collect drinking water samples from fountains in select campus buildings for chemical analysis by a third-party lab. Students will work in groups to develop an effective and scalable method to collect and share information about the condition of building infrastructure and options to mitigate potential concerns.
2 - Lead in Water Remediation in WA Primary Schools: For this project, students will focus on building a web-based application to help connect WA school district officials to available state funding to remediate and address lead contamination of drinking water in WA primary schools. The tool will summarize school-level water lead testing data collected by the WA Department of Health and Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction. Additionally, the tool will inform the general public and intended users about health concerns associated with lead exposure, sources of lead in water, and tradeoffs of different water remediation technologies. Students will also potentially have the opportunity to engage in qualitative interviews with school district administrators and officials.
Enrollment information
- Meeting time: Wednesdays, 2:30-4:20 p.m.
- Credits: 2 credits recommended (equivalent to 2 hours of in-person DRG class meetings and 4 hours of additional work per week).
- Who should apply: We are only recruiting upper-level undergraduates (juniors and seniors) and graduate students (M.S. or Ph.D) to participate in this DRG. Desired skills include web/app. development, data visualization, and science communication. Desired interests include environmental and public health, public infrastructure, and/or water equity.
- This DRG does count toward the PhD research requirement.
- To apply: Submit this Google form before midnight on March 28, 2026.
- Application deadline: March 28, 2026.
- Anticipated notification deadline: April 1, 2026
- Questions? Katya Cherukumilli (katyach@uw.edu) and Jessamine Li (ljl555@uw.edu)
Dr. Cherukumilli's research group archive