
Amy Pickering, PhD
Assistant Professor
Dr. Pickering is the Blum Center Distinguished Chair in Global Poverty and Practice jointly appointed in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Blum Center for Developing Economies.

Katya Cherukumilli, Phd
Postdoc

Daniel Daehyun Kim, PhD
Postdoc
Daniel is interested in investigating how antibiotic-resistant genes are transmitted between humans, animals, and the environment. He previously received his BS in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Korea University, and his MS and PhD from KAIST, where he studied microbial nitrogen cycles in diverse environments with respect to greenhouse gas.

Heather Amato, PhD
Postdoc
Heather’s research is centered around reducing microbial pathogen transmission through environmental pathways using a One Health lens. Heather completed her PhD in Environmental Health Sciences at UC Berkeley, where she focused on water, sanitation, hygiene and food-animal production as drivers of community-acquired antibiotic resistance. She received her B.A. from Kenyon College and M.P.H. from Emory University.

Sanaiya Islam
Lab Manager
Sanaiya is a joint lab manager also working with Sedlak, Nelson, and Alvarez-Cohen labs. Her research interests include biotransformation and fate of environmental contaminants, recycling and reusing nutrients from wastewater, and complex communities of microbial ecology. She received her M.S. from the University of Cincinnati in Environmental Engineering.

Michael Harris, PhD
Postdoc
Michael is working on an ongoing research project in Benin and India on environmental detection of soil transmitted helminths. He is currently based in Raleigh, North Carolina. Prior to joining the Pickering Lab at UC Berkeley, he received his PhD from E-IPER at Stanford University, where he focused on household and public sanitation services, policies, and child health connections. He was a lecturer in environmental engineering at San Diego State University during 2020-2021

Sooyeol (Suzy) Kim, PhD
Postdoc
Suzy’s research focuses on using wastewater to gain information about the health status of communities, often referred to as wastewater-based epidemiology. Suzy completed her MS and PhD in Environmental Engineering at Stanford University where she focused on optimizing use of wastewater monitoring for SARS-CoV-2 during the COVID-19 pandemic at different scales of systems. She received her BS from Harvey Mudd College in Chemistry.

Jeremy Lowe
Phd Student
Jeremy focuses on understanding transmission pathways of pathogens in the environment in low-income countries, human exposure to these pathogens and subsequent health outcomes, and strategies that can limit exposure to pathogens and improve health. He previously graduated from NC State University with a B.S. in Environmental Engineering. Outside of research, Jeremy loves being outside either running, cycling, or hiking.

Abby Harvey
PhD Student
Abby is interested in disease transmission pathways following natural disasters. She previously received her B.S. and MEng in Environmental Engineering from MIT and worked in the Environmental Preservation division within FEMA. Her previous work has involved analyzing water quality in low-income communities of the United States and Puerto Rico.

Hannah Wharton
PhD student
Hannah is a PhD student at UC Berkeley. Hannah received her BS and MS in Civil Engineering from UMass Amherst, where she evaluated bacterial water quality from point-of-use water treatment for low income settings and researched pathogen transport in intermittent water supply. Her research interests focus on investigating pathogen transmission in low-income settings and the impacts of WASH interventions on transmission pathways.

Denise Garcia
Phd Student
Denise is an MS/PhD student at UC Berkeley. Denise obtained her Bachelor of Science degree in environmental engineering at San Diego State University. Denise conducted research in Tijuana, MX on decentralized wastewater treatment systems. She was awarded the NSF graduate research fellowship and hopes to conduct research on disease transmission in low-income countries while attending UC Berkeley.

Scarlet Bliss
PhD Student
Scarlet is an Epidemiology PhD student in the Berkeley school of public health also advised by Jay Graham. She is interested in a combination of disciplines, including medicine, infectious disease transmission, global health, and climate and environmental health. As an UG, she led the PARE project, studying antibiotic resistance in the environment and working to develop a usable test for college curricula which will analyze soil and water samples to map antibiotic resistance nationally. See pare-seq.com.

John Mboya
MPH Student
John Mboya is a MPH student at Berkeley with a Global Health Fellowship. He is also a research associate with Innovations for Poverty, Action in Kenya and has managed a large number of WASH and global health field projects. He is interested in strategies to provide equitable health care access in Kenya, and reducing environmental transmission of infectious disease in rural Kenya.

Aathavan Senthilkumar
UG Mechanical Engineering
Aathavan is a Mechanical Engineering student at the University of California, Berkeley, with a strong passion for using engineering to make a positive impact on his community. His passion is for propulsion systems, fluid mechanics, and mechanical design. Whether he is working as a propulsion engineer or product designer, Aathavan enjoys implementing his skills an engineer and artist to invent and innovate. On his free time, you can find him playing the piano, playing badminton, or watching the latest Christopher Nolan film!

Henry Warder
MEng Student in Mechanical Engineering
Henry’s work with the Pickering Lab is focused on building products, devices and services that increase access to clean drinking water in resource constrained communities. When he’s not in the lab mocking up his latest designs, Henry can most likely be found surfing his local break or running his favorite trails.

Esther Mburu
MS in Development Engineering
Esther is a Master of Development Engineering student at UC Berkeley. Esther received her BSc in Petroleum Engineering from Kenyatta University in Nairobi, Kenya. She is interested in applying engineering and technology to solve environmental challenges and promote sustainable development.

Shruteek Mairal
Undergraduate in CBE
Shruteek is an undergraduate studying chemical and biomolecular engineering with a minor in EECS at Berkeley. He is fascinated by general chemistry, computational biology, and medical technology design, and is currently working on metagenomic analysis tools. As an academic student intern, a peer advisor, and a peer tutor, he is also pursuing pedagogy in many different subjects.

Pooja Patel
MS in Development Practice
Pooja is a Master of Development Practice student at UC Berkeley and previously received her BS in Mechanical Engineering and MS in Industrial Engineering at Purdue University. She is interested in leveraging human-centered design to work on sustainable technologies within resource constrained communities.

Lab Alumni

Julie Powers, PhD
CA State Water Board, Consultant for Development Impact Lab


Syed Anjerul Islam, MS
Current: PhD Student, UNC Chapel Hill

Eve Abraha, BS
Undergraduate


Mark Kiffe, MS

Elana Chan, BS
Current: Phd Student, CEE, Stanford University

Katie Liu

Jenna Swarthout, PhD


Molly Cantrell, MS
Current: Centers for Disease Control

