Water quality and quantity remain pressing concerns in Iowa, across the United States, and around the world. To help further elevate awareness and engagement around the linkage between water and global biohealth servicing a sustainable plant, animal, and human network, the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Iowa has invited Joan B. Rose to deliver the 9th Annual Richard Valentine Lecture. Rose, the Homer Nowlin Endowed Chair in Water Research at Michigan State University, will speak at 3:30 pm on Friday, October 25, in room 101 in the Becker Communication Studies Building.
Rose is nationally and internationally recognized for her pioneering work in the area of viral metagenomics - the sequencing of virus DNA in water sources, discharges, and shipping ballasts using next generation high-throughput technology. Her many professional appointments include serving on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Great Lakes Advisory Board, as science advisor to Singapore Centre on Environmental Life Sciences Engineering at Nanyang Technological University, and as a member of the National Academy of Engineering. Rose's research has received funding from NOAA, the EPA, NSF, the USDA, and NIFA. An international authority on water microbiology, water quality, and public health safety, Rose co-directs MSU's Center for Advancing Microbial Risk Assessment and the Center for Water Sciences.
Rose's talk is titled "Tracking Fecal Sources Across the Landscape Into River Systems.”
About the Valentine Lecture
The Richard L. Valentine Distinguished Lecture was established in honor of UI Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Richard Valentine. His special fields of knowledge consisted of chemistry and chemical engineering with special interests in water and wastewater treatment process design and modeling; environmental chemistry/reaction kinetics; processes to remove trace contamination from water; fate and transformation of hazardous chemicals; and treatment for soil decontamination. The permanent endowment created in his name supports the department's efforts to invite distinguished lecturers to campus. Valentine was a UI professor for 37 years before retiring in 2019.