THE WATER INNOVATION & REUSE LAB
Department of Civil Construction & Environmental Engineering
San Diego State University

WIRLab trains and mentors undergraduate and graduate students from diverse groups to take on environmental challenges in water scarce environments by conducting research on sustainable water and sanitation technologies and biogeochemical processes in natural and engineered systems. Current projects investigate the transformation and persistence of emerging chemicals in anaerobic and aerobic decentralized water reuse systems, sources of anthropogenic contaminants in urban rivers,  water quality response to stream restoration, the fate of microplastics in the environment, and rapid fluorescence-based tracking of organic contaminants in source waters, streams, and groundwater.
WIRLab is led by Dr. Natalie Mladenov, Associate Professor and William E. Leonhard Jr. Chair in the Department of Civil, Construction, & Environmental Engineering at SDSU.
Please contact Dr. Mladenov (at nmladenov @ sdsu.edu) or stop by E404 for a tour (once we're back in person!).
The virtual WIRLAB team
meeting on Zoom, Spring 2020
The WIRLAB team, Spring 2019.
Good old days of social bonding
PictureCheck out Lauren and Fed's outreach video!
Stephanie and Lauren install outside-in hollow fiber membrane for NSF project on transformation of chemicals of emerging concern in water reuse systems.

WIRLAB NEWS

October 2020
Congratulations!!! Kristen Snyder (MS 2019) was recognized at the Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors Awards Banquet for receiving the MS Thesis Award, one of only two awards for an outstanding Environmental Engineering/Science thesis.
September 2020
Congratulations to these WIRLab members:
  • WIRLab alum, Cari Campbell is recognized for her achievements in the CA-NV AWWA Spotlight
  • MS student Alma Rocha awarded the Leonard Endowment Scholarship.
  • JDP student Rachel Astete Vasquez awarded the Global Policy & Strategy Science Policy Fellowship at UCSD
  • MS students Alma Rocha and Fed Pinongcos received the McMahon Chi Epsilon Scholarship
July 2020
  • MS student Fed Pinongcos successfully defends his MS thesis on sources of microbial contamination in the San Diego River during storm events. Congratulations Fed!
  • MS student Alma Rocha awarded the 2020 SDSU Master's Research Scholarship!
  • Our San Diego River Contamination Study, in collaboration with labs of Drs. Verbyla, Kinoshita, and Gersberg evaluated influence of homeless encampments on surface water quality during dry weather and major sources of microbial contamination in the San Diego River during storm events. For more information, please see the Executive Report, which summarizes our findings, and the Final Report, which includes detailed results.
June 10, 2020
#ShutDownAcademia   #ShutDownSTEM      #BlackInSTEM      #BlackInTheIvory

Take the day to research the systemic racism that continues to plague academia. We have to face anti-black racism and cannot continue business as usual.
Some resources on anti-black racism here.
Links to increasing transparency in recruiting, supporting racial justice, pledge to support SDSU's African American Community.
This is only a start.
May 2020


Bioluminescence from the April/May 2020 red tide event at San Diego area beaches captured in this 3d fluorescence scan, which serves as a "fingerprint" that can track the algal (dinoflagellate) bloom.
-Water sample collected on April 30, 2020 near Encinitas, CA
-Fluorescence at ultraviolet (325 nm) and visible (670-690 nm) wavelengths of the spectrum due to energy emitted from the algae and compounds they exude.
Research inspired by undergraduate student Ciara Atencio
April 2020
- SDSU publishes News Center article about WIRLab research on fluorescence-based sensors tracking sewage contamination in urban rivers.
- New San Diego River Contamination Study by WIRLab, SafeWaTER Lab, and other SDSU colleagues identifies untreated wastewater as a major source of microbial pollution in the San Diego River and its tributaries.
March 2020
- WIRLab in the news on Eureka Alert for recent article on fluorescence-based sensors tracking sewage contamination in urban rivers.
- JDP student Rachel Astete Vasquez awarded Society of American Military Engineers San Diego Post Scholarship to recognize her academic achievements. Congratulations Rachel!
February 2020
- Mendoza et al. paper on fluorescence tracking of sewage inputs to rivers accepted in Science of the Total Environment!
- Denise Garcia awarded Women In Engineering Award at the SDSU Student Research Symposium (SRS) for her poster presentation, "Performance Evaluation of a Decentralized Wastewater Treatment Plant in Tijuana, B.C."
- Garcia, Pinongcos, Rocha, Gil, and Aponte all presented their research at SRS. Great job everyone!
January 2020
- Sanchez et al. paper on fluorescent compounds retained by ultrafiltration membranes accepted by Journal of Membrane Science!
- Gearing up for storm sampling and intense experimental work with lab-scale membrane bioreactors in 2020!
WIRLab has been renovated... well, repainted at least! Check out our new look!
November 2019
- Mladenov serves as Commentator at the Re-Border Binational Conference: El Agua Que Compartimos in San Diego, and Tijuana. Fed Pinongcos, Alma Rocha, and Lauren Steinberg present their research posters at the conference on day 2 in Tijuana!
- Elizabeth Winterton, Jeremy Monroe, Mia Gil, and Alex Kinney present their research at the Southern California Conferences on Undergraduate Research (SCCUR 2019) at Cal State San Marcos
October 2019
Applications now being accepted for US-Brazil Water and Sustainability Summer Research Program. Conduct undergraduate and graduate research in Brazil in summer 2020 on water and sanitation systems. Application deadline Dec 2, 2019.
Fed Pinongcos awarded the AEP Scholarship. Congratulations Fed!
Dr. Kinoshita's and Dr. Mladenov's Alvarado Creek research featured on sdsu.edu homepage
Volunteers Wanted! Field and lab research on post-fire water quality of urban streams. Contact margot.SDSU @ gmail.com for more information.
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