Portrait of Dr. Katherine Graham in a green blouse against a concrete wall background
grahamlab.org
Environmental Engineering
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Katherine Graham

Susan G. and Christopher D. Pappas Early-Career Professor
Email Address
katherine.graham@ce.gatech.edu
Telephone
(404) 894-1695
Office Building
Ford Environmental Science & Technology (ES&T) Building
Office Room Number
3228
Biography

Dr. Graham joined Georgia Tech as an Assistant Professor in January 2023. She completed a President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship at Georgia Tech and completed her MS and PhD in Environmental Engineering and Science at Stanford University. Prior to that, she received her undergraduate degree at the University of Michigan in Chemical Engineering.

Research

Dr. Graham’s research interests focus on the fate and transport of in the built and natural environments. Her previous research projects have focused on wastewater-based epidemiology, quantitative microbial risk assessment (QMRA), and the removal of pathogens in green stormwater infrastructure. Her lab aims to use molecular biology, microbiology, and modeling tools to address issues of water, climate, and health domestically and internationally.

Education

PhD         Stanford University         2021

MS           Stanford University          2017

BSE         University of Michigan     2015

 

 

Teaching

Dr. Graham teaches introductory and special topics courses within environmental engineering. She has taught Principles of Environmental Engineering, the departmental Teaching Assistant Practicum course, a special topics graduate course on Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment, and the Introduction to Civil and Environmental Engineering survey course. She aims to instill fundamental engineering and quantitative skills in her students and advisees through traditional and innovative pedagogies.

Distinctions & Awards
  • Frontiers of Engineering Symposium USA-China, 2026
  • Bill Schultz Junior Faculty Teaching Award, 2025
  • Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems, Faculty Scholar
Publications
  1. J.R. Phaneuf, G. Cha, J.K. Hatt, K.T. Konstantinidis, K.E. Graham. Decay and Solid-Liquid Partitioning of Mpox and Vaccinia Viruses in Primary Influent and Settled Solids to Guide Wastewater-Based Epidemiology Practices. Water Research. 284. DOI: 10.1016/j.watres.2025.123904.
  2. B.G. Lindner, K.E. Graham, J. R. Phaneuf, J.K. Hatt, K.T. Konstantinidis. 2025. SourceApp: A novel metagenomic source tracking tool that can discriminate between fecal microbiomes using genome-to-source associations benchmarked against mixed input spike-in mesocosms. Environmental Science & Technology. 59 (19). DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.5c03603.
  3. L.M. Grijalva, A. Seck, L. Roldan-Hernandez, K.E. Graham, A.B. Boehm, W.A. Tarpeh. 2024. Persistence of respiratory, enteric, and fecal indicator viruses in fecal sludge from on-site sanitation in Dakar, Senegal. Journal of Water and Health. 14 (10). DOI: 10.2166/washdev.2024.011.
  4. B.G. Lindner, R. Chaudhury, P. Pinamang, I. D’amico, L. Bingham, J.K. Hatt, K.T. Konstantinidis, K.E. Graham. 2024. Advancing source tracking: systematic review and source-specific genome database curation of fecally shed prokaryotes. Environmental Science & Technology Letters. 11 (9). DOI: 10.1021/acs.estlett.4c00233.
  5. G. Cha, Y. Huang, K.E. Graham, A. Luo, W. Chen, J.K. Hatt, K.T. Konstantinidis, X. Xie. 2024. Cold-chain free nucleic acid preservation using porous super-absorbent polymer (PSAP) beads to facilitate wastewater surveillance. Science of the Total Environment. 939. DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.173468.
  6. K.E. Furst, K.E. Graham, RJ Weisman, KB Adusei. 2024. It’s getting hot in here: Effects of heat on temperature, disinfection, and opportunistic pathogens in drinking water distribution systems. Water Research. 260. DOI: 10.1016/j.watres.2024.121913.
  7. G. Cha, K.J. Zhu, J.M. Fisher, C.I. Flores, J. Brown, A. Pinto, J.K. Hatt, K.T. Konstantinidis, K.E. Graham. 2024. Metagenomic evaluation of the performance of passive Moore swabs for sewage monitoring relative to composite sampling over time resolved deployments. Water Research. 253. DOI: 10.1016/j.watres.2024.121269
  8. A. Natarajan, B.J. Fremin, D.T. Schmidtke, M.K. Wolfe, S. Zlitni, K.E. Graham, E.F. Brooks, C.J. Severyn, K.M. Sakamoto, N.J. Lacayo, S. Kuersten, J. Koble, G. Caves, I. Kaplan Inna, U. Singh, P. Jagannathan, A.R. Rezvani, A.S. Bhatt, A.B. Boehm. 2023. The Tomato Brown Rugose Fruit Virus Movement Protein Gene Is a Novel Microbial Source Tracking Marker. Applied and Environmental Microbiology. 89 (7). DOI: 10.1128/aem.00583-23.
  9. G. Cha, K.E. Graham, K.J. Zhu, G. Rao, B. Lindner, K. Kocaman, S. Woo, I. D'amico, L.R. Bingham, J.M. Fischer, C.I. Flores, J.W. Spencer, P. Yathiraj, H. Chung, S. Biliya, N. Djeddar, L.J. Burton, S.J. Mascuch, J. Brown, A. Bryksin, A. Pinto, J.K. Hatt, K.T. Konstantinidis. 2022. Parallel deployment of passive and composite samplers for surveillance and variant profiling of SARS-CoV-2 in sewage. Science of the Total Environment. 866. DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.161101. *co-first authorship
  10. J. Soller, W. Jennings, M. Schoen, A.B. Boehm, K. Wigginton, D. Gerrity, R. Gonzalez, G. McBride, K.E. Graham, A. Kirby, M. Mattioli. 2022. Modeling Total Infection Burden from SARS-CoV-2 Wastewater Concentrations: Promise, Limitations, and Future Directions. Journal of Water and Health. 20 (8). DOI: 10.2166/wh.2022.094.

In the News

A rendering of a data center campus

Data Centers, Microbes, and the Future of Water Reuse

As metro Atlanta becomes a magnet for hyperscale data centers, the region faces a twin challenge: securing enough water to cool these facilities while ensuring that wastewater reuse doesn't introduce new public health risks. Assistant Professor Katherine Graham is using viruses, bacteria, and advanced analytics to understand how water reuse and cooling systems can support data center growth without compromising community health.

Georgia Tech Research
Read more about Data Centers, Microbes, and the Future of Water Reuse