Amy Xiao
Research Interests
Wastewater offers a rich source of public health information. Biomarkers of infectious disease, diet, and other population health metrics are constantly shed in feces and wind up in a community's wastewater. I am interested in developing methods to use wastewater surveillance data to track infectious diseases and infer their incidence/prevalence in a population. In particular, I have been working with Alm lab members and collaborators at Biobot Analytics to track COVID-19 in wastewater across the United States and model viral shedding. I am excited to combine expertise from mechanical, electrical, and biological engineering to build a device to detect pathogens at the building level. Such a device will help apartment complexes, workplaces, and hospitals respond to outbreaks in near real time.
