Boehm Research Group
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Alexandria B. Boehm, PhD
Richard and Rhoda Goldman Professor in Environmental Studies
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Department of Oceans
Senior Fellow of the Woods Institute for the Environment
Sugden Family University Fellow in Undergraduate Education
Faculty Fellow, Center for Innovation in Global Health
Stanford University
Jerry Yang & Akiko Yamazaki Environment & Energy Building
(+1) 650-724-9128
Email: aboehm@stanford.edu
Education 1996
B.S.
Engineering and Applied Science with Honors from California Institute of Technology
1997
M.S.
Environmental Engineering from University of California Irvine
2000
Ph.D.
Environmental Engineering from University of California Irvine
Thesis title: An Integrative Investigation of Particle Distributions in Natural Waters
Research Interests I am interested in pathogens in the environment including their sources, fate, and transport in natural and engineered systems. I am interested in understanding how pathogens are transmitted to humans through contact with water, feces, and contaminated surfaces. My research is focused on key problems in both high-income and low- and middle-income countries with the overarching goal of designing and testing novel interventions and technologies for reducing the burden of disease.

I am also interested broadly in coastal water quality where my work addresses the sources, transformation, transport, and ecology of biocolloids - specifically fecal indicator organisms, DNA, pathogens, and phytoplankton - as well as sources and fate of nitrogen. This knowledge is crucial to formulating new management policies and engineering practices that protect human and ecosystem health at the coastal margins.

Details of projects can be found here.

Teaching Environmental science and engineering, by its very nature, is multi-disciplinary. In order to be successful, students must be grounded in fundamental sciences and also have the know-how to apply the fundamentals to real, complex problems. Because there are also regulatory, political, and social components to real environmental problems, the most successful environmental science and engineering problem-solvers will have a background in these broader domains as well. With these challenges in mind, I have developed four multi-disciplinary classes that aim to supply the fundamentals for applied environmental problem solving: CEE 41Q: Clean Water Now: Urban Water Conflicts!, CEE 175A/275A California Coast: Science, Policy, and Law, CEE 272 Coastal Contaminants, CEE 271M Transport Phenomena, CEE 274E Pathogens in the environment, and CEE 274P Environmental Health Microbiology Lab. I co-teach CEE175A/275A with a law professor (Deborah Sivas). The class is popular with students from the Law School, Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Earth Systems Science. The class was even featured on Jeopardy (the game show). For more information about these courses, please follow this link.
Awards
2024 Elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE)
2024 Open Science Champion Prize from Stanford Data Science Center for Open and REproducible Science (CORES)
2017 ACS Environmental Science & Technology Excellence in Review Award
2016 National Oceanographic Partnership Program Excellence in Partnership Award
2016 ACS Environmental Science & Technology Letters Excellence in Review Award
2016 ASCE Huber Prize
2008 Participant in National Academy of Engineers' Frontiers of Engineering Symposium
2007 NSF Career Award
2007 Pacific Rim Center for Oceans and Human Health Visiting Scholar
2001 Excellence in Teaching Award at Univ. California Irvine
2000 to
2002
Faculty Fellow Award at Univ. California Irvine
State and National Service 2020 to
Present
Associate editor at Environmental Science & Technology and Environmental Science & Technology Letters
2018 to
2022
Member State of California Ocean Acidification Science Task Force
2007 to
Present
Member State of California Clean Beach Task Force
2008 to
Present
Member State of California Ocean Protection Council Science Advisor Team
2014 to
2016
Co-Chair of West Coast Science Panel on Ocean Acidification and Hypoxia
2007 Participant on National Experts Workshop of Recreational Water Quality Criteria held by USEPA
Links Stanford University
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Environmental and Water Studies
Woods Institute for the Environment
WastewaterSCAN
Updated January 2021