Dr. Cook’s research promotes the design and development of sustainable water systems and civil infrastructure. Dr. Cook’s research takes a systems perspective to identify the most crucial components and best ways to improve a system’s performance. Specifically, she couples biological process models with experimentation and sustainability tools, like life cycle assessment and life cycle costing. With this approach, her research involves determining the operational limits of biological treatment systems, advancing technologies that recover resources from waste, integrating environmental and economic factors into the design and decision-making processes, and identifying strategic and appropriate implementations of a closed water treatment system.
keywords
wastewater treatment, environmental biotechnology, resource recovery from waste, sustainable design, sustainability-based decision-making, sustainable water system implementation, life cycle assessment, life cycle costing, social sustainability, multi-criteria decision analysis
CVEN 5534 - Wastewater Treatment
Primary Instructor
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Spring 2018 / Spring 2019 / Spring 2021
Covers the processes used to treat municipal wastewater, focusing on biological processes. Includes: design of aerobic, anoxic, anaerobic and suspended growth technologies to remove and transform pollutants; design and assessment of treatment approaches that recover energy, nutrients and water from wastewater; application of fundamental concepts of aquatic chemistry, environmental microbiology and computational models. Recommended prerequisites: CVEN 5404 and CVEN 5484 and CVEN 5464.
ENVM 6100 - Special Topics for Master of the Environment Program
Secondary Instructor
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Fall 2018
A variety of topics not currently offered in curriculum; offered depending on instructor availability and student demand. May be repeated up to 18 total credit hours.
EVEN 3550 - Sustainability Principles for Engineers
Primary Instructor
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Fall 2018 / Fall 2020 / Fall 2021
An introduction to sustainability principles in the field of environmental engineering. Students will apply these principles to engineering problems in order to evaluate the environmental, economic and social implications of engineering and design decisions. Topics include definitions of sustainability, main engineering sustainability challenges (e.g., water, climate and materials), pollution generation and prevention and sustainability assessment tools.
EVEN 5584 - Sustainable Engineering Design
Primary Instructor
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Spring 2022
Introduces students to sustainable design and quantitative sustainability assessment methods. Students will develop an understanding of quantitative sustainable design and how to navigate engineering decision-making. Students will learn tools for economic (life cycle costing, LCC) and environmental (life cycle assessment, LCA) sustainability assessments, and how to link these tools to engineering design decisions under uncertainty. Students will design engineered technologies individually and in teams, with special attention to energy and water technologies. Main course objectives are that students will have the ability to assess the relative sustainability of design alternatives using quantitative tools and to complete the detailed design of civil/environmental engineering infrastructure while navigating trade-offs across and within dimensions of sustainability.
