Fangqiong Ling, an assistant professor of energy, environmental and chemical engineering at the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, has been awarded the Best Emerging Investigator Series Paper in 2022 from the Royal Society of Chemistry.
The paper, Emerging investigator series: meta-analyses on SARS-CoV-2 viral RNA levels in wastewater and their correlations to epidemiological indicators, was published on the cover of Environmental Science: Water Research & Technology in July 2022. It is part of the journal's Emerging Investigators Series in water engineering and technology across the globe. It highlights up-and-coming scientists in the early stages of their independent careers who have been identified as having the potential to influence future directions in the field.
Several members of Ling's lab are among the co-authors of the paper, including first author David Mantilla-Calderon, a postdoctoral associate; Kaseba Chibwe, a doctoral student; and Kevin Huang and Aojie Li, master's students who are now pursuing doctorates in other institutions. In addition, the paper is co-authored by Lei Liu, a professor of biostatistics and data science at the School of Medicine; Yinyin Ye, an assistant professor in the Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering at the University at Buffalo; and Xiaoqian Yu from University of Vienna.
Ling's lab studies microbial systems that hold promises to address public health and climate challenges. They use genomics and data science tools to explore microbes as environmental sensors and public health sentinels.
