Bio
Liang Zhao is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Wolfe Lab in the Gangarosa Department of Environmental Health at Emory University. His research focuses on wastewater monitoring of human infectious disease pathogens. He is currently working on designing and implementing experiments to elucidate the partitioning and persistence of bacterial pathogens in wastewater, developing wastewater monitoring of bacterial pathogens in Atlanta communities, and applying bioinformatic and sequencing approaches to characterize pathogen diversities in wastewater.
His doctoral dissertation developed and implemented wastewater monitoring approaches to detect and predict existing and emerging human infectious disease pathogens in urban communities, primarily in the Detroit metro area, including viral, bacterial, and fungal disease pathogens. As an instructor, he taught ENE 280 Principles of Environmental Engineering and Science at Michigan State University in Spring 2025.
Education
Ph.D., Michigan State University
M.S., University of Illinois Chicago
B.E., Xi'an Jiaotong University
Areas of Interest
- Bioinformatics
- Disease Surveillance
- Environmental Health
- Safe Water
- Sanitation and Hygiene
- Data Science
- Infectious Disease
- Vector-borne/Zoonotic Diseases
Affiliations
Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors
American Society of Civil Engineers