People
Principal Investigator
Kaoru Ikuma, Ph.D. (she/her)
Associate Professor
Cerwick Faculty Fellow
Department of Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering
Iowa State University
Office and mailing address:
328 Town Engineering Building
813 Bissell Rd
Ames, IA 50011
Phone: (515) 294-7660
Email: kikuma [at] iastate [dot] edu
Current graduate students and postdocs
Sadaf Mehrabi
Postdoctoral researcher (Ph.D. from Western University, ON)
January 2023 - present
Main project: EPA water reuse
Email: smehrabi [at] iastate [dot] edu
Henry Croll
Ph.D. student (Civil Engineering with Environmental specialization), co-advised with Dr. Say Kee Ong
Fall 2021 - present
Main project: Reinforcement learning for wastewater control optimization
Email: hcroll [at] iastate [dot] edu
Alejandra Chavez
Ph.D. student (Environmental Science)
Fall 2021 - present
Main project: Predicting the fate and transport of antibiotic resistance genes in streams
Email: archavez [at] iastate [dot] edu
Zachary Burton
Ph.D. student (Microbiology)
Summer 2022 - present
Main project: Microbial biofilm influences on corrosion outcomes
Email: zburton [at] iastate [dot] edu
Kaitlin Garretson
Ph.D. student (Microbiology)
Summer 2022 - present
Main project: Bacterial outcomes of disinfection
Email: kmg1198 [at] iastate [dot] edu
Daniel Montgomery
Ph.D. student (Microbiology)
Fall 2023 - present
Main project: TBD
Email: dfm [at] iastate [dot] edu
Evans Asante
Ph.D. student (Civil Engineering with Environmental specialization), co-advised with Dr. Chris Rehmann
Fall 2022 - present
Main project: Pathways to exposure to pathogens during flooding
Email: eaasante [at] iastate [dot] edu
Derek Ten Pas
MS student (Civil Engineering with Environmental specialization)
Spring 2023 - present
Main project: EPA water insecurity and health outcomes in Alaskan Native communities
Email: djtenpas [at] iastate [dot] edu
Logan Didier
MS student (Civil Engineering with Environmental specialization)
Fall 2023 - present
Main project: 3D printing of biofilms for wastewater applications
Email: ldidier [at] iastate [dot] edu
Karol Lopez
MS student (Civil Engineering with Environmental specialization), co-advised with Dr. Chris Rehmann
Spring 2024 - present
Main project: Predicting fate and transport of antibiotic resistance in streams
Email: lkarol [at] iastate [dot] edu
Current undergraduate researchers
Jackson Warnstadt
Environmental Engineering major
Spring 2024 - present
Emma Shepard
Environmental Engineering major
Fall 2023 - present
Robert Valiga
Environmental Engineering major
Fall 2023 - present
Past researchers
Past postdocs
Masrur Mahedi - currently an engineer at Iowa Department of Transportation
Narendra Kumar Patel - currently a hydraulic modeler at Arcadis
Past graduate students
Rayla Pinto-Vilar (Ph.D. 2021) - currently a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Minnesota
Sahar Daer (Ph.D. 2021) - currently a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Queensland, Australia
Patrick Brown (Ph.D. 2019) - currently an environmental engineer at the Des Moines Metropolitan Wastewater Reclamation Authority
Yifei Ma (MS 2021) - currently a Ph.D. student at the University of Pittsburgh
Meesha Legg (MS 2021) - currently an environmental engineer at the Iowa Department of Natural Resources
Parker Dulin (MS 2019) - currently an associate scientist at Omega Bio-tek
Xuewei Liang (MS 2017) - currently a laboratory manager at the Water Institute at Saint Louis University
Past undergraduate researchers
40+ students so far!