This page contains an archive of the past five years of Directed Research Groups led by Professor Cherukumilli. View her currently offered DRGs »
- Testing Drinking Water Quality and Building Science Communication Tools
- Rebuilding the Nation’s Drinking Water Infrastructure - Where are the Lead Pipes and What Comes Next?
- Safe Drinking Water Provision in Public Institutions
- Water You Drinking?
Spring 2025
Testing Drinking Water Quality and Building Science Communication Tools
Instructors:
- Dr. Katya Cherukumilli
- Jessamine Li (HCDE MS 2nd-year student)
The purpose of this Spring 2025 DRG is to advance two recently-funded research projects focused on increasing access to safe drinking water in institutional settings. Students will work in groups to (1) collect and analyze drinking water samples from fountains in select campus buildings, (2) analyze existing water quality datasets from WA State primary schools, and (3) develop effective communication artefacts (e.g., website, app., maps, info. sheets, etc.) to educate and persuade key stakeholders to make critical decisions based on the findings.
(1) Water Quality Testing on UW Campus: Through this project funded by the Campus Sustainability Fund, students will learn techniques to properly collect, handle, and store drinking water samples from 10 UW campus buildings. They will assist in submitting collected water samples to the UW Environmental Health Laboratory for sample processing. Students will visualize the water quality data and develop an appropriate communication strategy to share information about the condition of building infrastructure and options to mitigate potential concerns. In addition, students will develop fact sheets to educate campus users about the sustainability, health, and economic impacts of using plastic water vs. filtered tap water
(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 web tool will summarize school-level water lead testing data collected by the WA Department of Health (e.g., % of lead-contaminated water fixtures, estimated cost of replacing water fixtures). 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.
Winter 2025
Instructors:
- Dr. Katya Cherukumilli
- Stephanie Hung (HCDE PhD student)
After the Flint water crisis, the U.S. EPA passed landmark federal regulation in 2021 called the “Lead and Copper Rule Revisions”, which established new requirements to protect people from lead exposure through drinking water. One requirement is for all community water systems to replace any lead service lines with an alternative material (such as copper, plastic, or galvanized steel) within the next 10 years! However, there is growing concern that these alternative materials may also contaminate future water supplies and pose a threat to human and ecosystem health.
The purpose of this Winter 2025 DRG is to gather, synthesize, and vizualize data from lead service line inventories submitted by community water systems to gain a snapshot of the plumbing materials being used across the United States. In particular, this collaborative work will help shed light on the following reserach questions: (1) Which regions across the U.S. are currently using lead (versus other materials such as plastic, galvanized steel, or copper) to transport water from water treatment plants to communities, households, and institutions? (2) Is there evidence that certain utilities are prioritizng plastic as the alternative material for service lines due to its low cost? and (3) Which regions are at higher risk of damage to their water infrastructure due to climate disturbances such as wildfires and other extreme weather events?
Winter 2024
Safe Drinking Water Provision in Public Institutions
The purpose of this Winter 2024 DRG is to characterize and evaluate drinking water infrastructure in two local settings: (1) UW College of Engineering buildings built pre-2000 and (2) Seattle primary schools and childcare facilities. For the first setting (UW), our group will be deploying online surveys developed in Fall 2023 to evaluate building users’ experiences, behaviors, and perceptions related to drinking water, in addition to conducting water quality tests. For the second setting (K-12 schools), we will analyze and spatially map lead contamination data provided by the WA State Department of Health. In addition, we will review relevant scientific literature to identify effective strategies for communicating risk and technical knowledge to the general public.
Contact: For questions or concerns, please contact Dr. Katya Cherukumilli (katyach@uw.edu)
Autumn 2023
Concerns with drinking water quality plague individual and institutional users worldwide. Over 2 billion people worldwide lack safe water access and millions of Americans are exposed to aqueous chemical contaminants through their consumption of public and private drinking water supplies. The purpose of this year-long DRG is to develop replicable survey tools, experimental methods, and data collection protocols to characterize drinking water usage, assess and experimentally validate perceptions of water safety and risk, and communicate technical knowledge to the public.
To contextualize our work, we will identify and map water infrastructure in select UW campus buildings and document building occupants’ experiences and opinions about their access (or lack thereof) to high quality water sources. A quick walk around campus clearly demonstrates the age of different UW College of Engineering (est. 1901) buildings, ranging from Roberts Hall (est. 1921) to the Interdisciplinary Engineering Building (under construction, occupancy in 2025) – we will uncover if and how building age impacts the quality of drinking water taps and fountains.
In this DRG, students will have the opportunity to establish and use a water quality testing lab in More Hall and develop a sampling and analysis protocol for future work. In parallel, students will collaborate in teams to design an interactive dashboard to report concerning water quality results, conduct virtual and in-person surveys, summarize common trends in interview data, and synthesize/share resources on water treatment and monitoring technologies. No previous wet-lab experience is required, but an interest in social equity, environmental justice issues, and/or scientific curiosity will be appreciated.