Assistant Professor Caitlin Proctor Was Chosen to Speak at the AWWA (American Water Works Association) Water Quality Technology Conference
Emphasizing opportunities for drinking water quality improvement was a foundational theme in Dr. Caitlin Proctor’s November 2025 AEESP Emerging Investigator Lecture at the AWWA (American Water Works Association) Water Quality Technology Conference. The Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors (AEESP) selected her for the opportunity.
Dr. Caitlin Proctor is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering (ABE) and the School of Sustainability Engineering and Environmental Engineering (SEE). Her lecture, "Exploring Pipe Ecology and Maintaining Water Quality at the Tap," was sponsored by AEESP Sustaining Member Corona Environmental Consulting.
“I was honored to be selected to speak at this event,” said Dr. Proctor.
“Translation of research to practice is so important to me, and this was an excellent opportunity to make an impact with practitioners. I also appreciated that the AEESP community felt my work was important enough to be highlighted in this way.”
Dr. Proctor has dedicated her career to advancing drinking water safety.
“Maintaining water quality from treatment to the tap is a challenge for any water system. This is made more complicated by multi-domain ecological system living along the walls of pipes. Understanding how these microbes grow and interact offers new opportunities to strategically manage microbial threats, both in the distribution system and within buildings. I was able to expand on some disruptive events like COVID-19 building shut-downs and wildfire, as well as novel strategies to maintain water quality to the tap.”
Dr. Proctor shared that inspiring future progress with this work was an important part of her talk.
“I tried to emphasize opportunities for future research in drinking water safety, and opportunities for water consumers to partner with utilities for the best outcomes in water quality,” Dr. Proctor said. “Many of the audience worked at water utilities and did not previously know about bacterial issues in plumbing, and I was happy to bridge the gap.”
Dr. Proctor plans to build on her research with some recently awarded grants, such as her NSF CAREER grant, which is the NSF’s most prestigious grant award. Dr. Proctor will use this funding for a five-year project investigating biofilms in drinking water pipes.
Dr. Proctor is an invaluable member of the SEE community. She brings lessons about safe drinking water from her research talks back into her classes.
“[Before learning from my research], often [my] students are often not even aware that drinking water has bacteria at all,” Dr. Proctor shared.
Dr Proctor collaborates with several SEE faculty in applying microbial ecology principles to engineer systems for both efficiency and safety. This includes making drinking water safer, improving efficiency in hydroponics, or even extracting metals from landfills.
To learn more about the Purdue School of Sustainability Engineering and Environmental Engineering (SEE), visit: https://engineering.purdue.edu/SEE.