SEALab Alumni

Research Interest:

Maryam investigates the processes that affect the longevity of stormwater biofilter media so that their performance lifetime can be improved by engineering controls or design modifications. Specific objectives of her research: (1) to examine the effect of one of the physical stressors—compaction— on longevity of biofilter media and performance of biofilters; (2) to evaluate the effect of a chemical stressors—stormwater constituents—on longevity and performance of iron amendment; (3) to examine the persistence of antibiotic resistance genes, an emerging contaminant, in stormwater biofilters with different design configurations. The results of her work will advance the understanding of how physical, chemical and biological processes in biofilters could deteriorate biofilter media over time.

Publication(s):

1. Ghavanloughajar, M., Borthakur, A., Valenca, R., McAdam, M., Khor, C., Dittrich, T.M., Stenstrom, M., and Mohanty, S.K. (202X) Iron amendment minimizes the first-flush release of pathogens from stormwater biofilters. Environmental Pollution. 116989. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2021.116989.

2. Ghavanloughajar, M., Le, H., Rahman, M.D., Valenca, R., Borthakur, A., Ravi, S., Stenstrom, M., and Mohanty, S.K. (2020) Compaction conditions affect the capacity of biochar-amended sand filters to treat road runoff. Science of the Total Environment. 735, 139180. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.139180.

Fun fact:

She loves organizing events and she is an officer for grad chapter of UCLA Society of Women Engineer. She was born in Iran.

Research Interest:

Meng is interested in understanding the transport of emerging contaminants such as PFAS in stormwater treatment systems. Currently, she is reviewing research articles on the fate and transport of PFAS in the terrestrial environment. She works as an undergraduate research assistant in SEALab and is starting her M.S. studies in SEALab from 2020 Fall.

Publications:

1. Borthakur, A., Wang, M., He, M., Ascensio, K., Adamson, D., and Blotevogel, J., Mahendra, S., and Mohanty, S.K. (2021) Perfluoroalkyl acids on suspended particles: Unexplored transport pathways in surface water and subsurface soils. Journal of Hazardous Materials. 417. 126159. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhazmat.2021.126159

Fun Facts:

Meng is interested in cooking and photography, in particular food photography. She enjoys spending hours preparing food and pastries and then taking excellent photos of them. She loves dogs and has a two-year-old super cute and sweet puppy named “Wangcai”. She was born in China.

Nishanth is interested in water resiliency planning and sustainable design. He has experience in site characterization for soil and groundwater quality. He is learning machine-learning algorithms in the data-intense domain of Environmental Engineering.

Research Interest:

Cami is interested in water reuse and management, renewable energy, and green infrastructure. Her research examines how to best design of stormwater treatment systems near the roadside so that they can treat road runoff at the source. In particular, she conducted bench-top experiments to examine the effect of compaction on the ability of biochar to treat stormwater.

Publications:

1. Valenca, R., Borthakur, A., Le, H., and Mohanty, S.K. (2021) Biochar Role in Improving Pathogens Removal Capacity of Stormwater Biofilters. Advances in Chemical Pollution, Environmental Management and Protection: Biochar: Fundamentals and Applications in Environmental Science and Remediation Technologies. Volume 6. Editor: Ajit Sarmah.

2. Valenca, R., Le, H., Zu, Y., Dittrich, T., Tsang, D.C.W., Datta, R., Sarkar, D., and Mohanty, S. (2021) Nitrate removal uncertainty in stormwater control measures: Is the design or climate a culprit? Water Research. 116781. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.watres.2020.116781.

3. Le, H., Valenca, R., Ravi, S., Stenstrom, M., and Mohanty, S.K. (2020) Size-dependent biochar breaking under compaction: Implications on clogging and pathogen removal in biofilters. Environmental Pollution. 115195. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2020.115195

4. Ghavanloughajar, M., Le, H., Rahman, M.D., Valenca, R., Borthakur, A., Ravi, S., Stenstrom, M., and Mohanty, S.K. (2020) Compaction conditions affect the capacity of biochar-amended sand filters to treat road runoff. Science of the Total Environment. 735, 139180. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.139180

Awards

2020 Edward K. Rice Outstanding Master’s Student Award

Fun Facts:

She has graduated with M.S. and continuing working in SEALab as a project scientist. Cami enjoys activities that make her move: practicing fitness, gardening, and playing with her cutest-pet-in-the-earth: a corgi. She also loves reading books and writing. Cami can pick up a new language quickly. She was born in Vietnam.

Publication(s):

1. Berger, A.W., Valenca, R., Miao, Y., Ravi, S., Mahendra, S. and Mohanty, S.K., 2019. Biochar increases nitrate removal capacity of woodchip biofilters during high-intensity rainfall. Water research. 165, 115008. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.watres.2019.115008

2. Mohanty, S.K., Valenca, R., Berger, A., Xiong, X., Yu, I.K.M., Saunders, T.M., and Tsang, D.C.W. (2018) Plenty of room for carbon on the ground: Potential applications of biochar for stormwater treatment. Science of the Total Environment. 625, 1644-1658. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.01.037

Research Interest:

Yeyang (aka Benson) is interest in how to best design stormwater treatment systems to improve microbial pollutants. In particular, he assisted laboratory experiments that links biochar properties with its bacterial removal capacity. Benson is currently working on an experiment that uses fungi to remove munition compounds in subsurface.

Publications:

1. Valenca, R., Le, H., Zu, Y., Dittrich, T., Tsang, D.C.W., Datta, R., Sarkar, D., and Mohanty, S. (2021) Nitrate removal uncertainty in stormwater control measures: Is the design or climate a culprit? Water Research. 116781. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.watres.2020.116781.

2. Valenca, R., Borthakur, A., Zu, Y., Stenstrom, M. K., and Mohanty, S.K. (2021) Biochar selection for Escherichia coli removal in stormwater biofilters. Journal of Environmental Engineering. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)EE.1943-7870.0001843

Fun Facts:

He likes tasting chocolate and is a claimed otter-lover. He was born in China.

Research Interest:

Allison broadly interested in water quality management using green infrastructure. Allison assists one of the Ph.D. student in laboratory study and literature review examining the impact of wildfire on surface water quality and how to best design stormwater treatment systems to mitigate the negative impact.

Publications:

1. *Raoelison, O., Valenca, R., Lee, A., Karim, S., Pouline, B.A., and Mohanty, S. (202X) Wildfire deteriorates surface water quality: when, why, and to what extent? [Submitted: January 29, 2021]

Award

2020-2021 Outstanding CEE Bachelor of Sciences Student Award at UCLA

Fun Facts:

Allison is a very good writer. She has led the undergrad team in a student competitions and won 1st prize in US EPA's Campus RainWorks Challenge competition. She is native Californian and was born there.

Research Interest:

She is interested in how to remove wide range of pollutants including microplastics from stormwater and reuse stormwater for water sustainability.

Publication(s):

1. Koutnik, V.S., Alkidim, S., Leonard, D. J., DePrima, F., Cao, S., Hoek, E., and Mohanty, S.K. (2021) Unaccounted microplastics in wastewater sludge: Where do they go? ES&T Water. 1, 5, 1086–1097. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsestwater.0c00267

2. Koutnik, V.S., Leonard, D. J., Alkidim, S., DePrima, F., Ravi, S., Hoek, E., and Mohanty, S. (2021) Distribution of microplastics in soil and freshwater environments: Global analysis and framework for transport modeling. Environmental Pollution. 116552. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2021.116552

Fun Facts:

Francesca loves painting and dance. She grew up practicing ballet and she dances for fun in a company at UCLA. In her free time, Francesca enjoys painting and she has one special thing on her bucket list: to visit every national park in the U.S. She is native California resident and was born there.

Research Interest:

Sarah has been examining the conditions that affect microplastic transport in biofilters in addition to collecting extensive data for a review article on microplastic occurrence and transport in terrestrial environments. Her current work focuses on how dielectric property of plastic affects biofilm properties on microplastics.

Publication(s):

1. Koutnik, V.S., Alkidim, S., Leonard, D. J., DePrima, F., Cao, S., Hoek, E., and Mohanty, S.K. (2021) Unaccounted microplastics in wastewater sludge: Where do they go? ES&T Water. 1, 5, 1086–1097. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsestwater.0c00267

2. Koutnik, V.S., Leonard, D. J., Alkidim, S., DePrima, F., Ravi, S., Hoek, E., and Mohanty, S. (2021) Distribution of microplastics in soil and freshwater environments: Global analysis and framework for transport modeling. Environmental Pollution. 116552. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2021.116552

Fun Facts:

Sarah loves listening to and playing music. Recently, she's gotten into rock climbing and is hoping the gains will show. She loves the outdoors, and believes Netflix is a gift to be cherished. Sarah is an international student from Kuwait and is bilingual.

Research Interest:

Katia is interested in sustainable manufacturing, and further studying fate of contaminants to better protect vulnerable communities. She has been assisting a graduate student to conduct a critical literature review on fate and transport of PFAS in the terrestrial environment.

Publications:

1. Borthakur, A., Wang, M., He, M., Ascensio, K., Adamson, D., and Blotevogel, J., Mahendra, S., and Mohanty, S.K. (2021) Perfluoroalkyl acids on suspended particles: Unexplored transport pathways in surface water and subsurface soils. Journal of Hazardous Materials. 417. 126159. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhazmat.2021.126159

Fun facts:

Katia loves cooking and learning about different cultures, which has led her to study Hindi and Serbian, and she is trying her best to be fluent. She was born in El Salvador.

Publication:

1. Borthakur, A., Olsen, P., Dooley, G., Cranmer, B.K., Rao, U., Hoek, E.M.V., Blotevogel, J., Mahendra, S., and Mohanty, S.K. (2021) Dry-wet and freeze-thaw cycles enhance PFOA leaching from subsurface soils. Journal of Hazardous Materials Letters. 2. 100029. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hazl.2021.100029

Publication:

1. Ghavanloughajar, M., Borthakur, A., Valenca, R., McAdam, M., Khor, C., Dittrich, T.M., Stenstrom, M., and Mohanty, S.K. (202X) Iron amendment minimizes the first-flush release of pathogens from stormwater biofilters. Environmental Pollution. 116989. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2021.116989.

Publication:

Valenca, R., Ramnath, K., Dittrich, T.M., Taylor, R. E., and Mohanty, S.K. (2020) Microbial quality of surface water and subsurface soil after wildfire. Water Research. 175, 115672. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.watres.2020.115672

Publication:

Ghavanloughajar, M., Le, H., Rahman, M.D., Valenca, R., Borthakur, A., Ravi, S., Stenstrom, M., and Mohanty, S.K. (2020) Compaction conditions affect the capacity of biochar-amended sand filters to treat road runoff. Science of the Total Environment. 735, 139180. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.139180

Publication:

Mohanty, S.K., Valenca, R., Berger, A., Xiong, X., Yu, I.K.M., Saunders, T.M., and Tsang, D.C.W. (2018) Plenty of room for carbon on the ground: Potential applications of biochar for stormwater treatment. Science of the Total Environment. 625, 1644-1658. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.01.037