Abstract:

Microbial communities underpin the health of humans, animals, and ecosystems, shaping our world and how we experience it. Conversely, microbes are also shaped by human activities, including the widespread use of antimicrobial chemicals. Understanding how microbial communities respond to these pressures is essential for mitigating antimicrobial resistance, protecting public health, and developing sustainable biotechnologies. Drawing on studies spanning hospitals, homes, wastewater treatment systems, and host-associated microbiomes, this talk will explore how microbial ecology can reveal the mechanisms by which microbes adapt, survive, and evolve in complex real-world environments.

I will present recent work investigating the fate and impacts of antimicrobial chemicals in built and natural environments, highlighting how chemical exposures reshape microbial community structure and select for resistant organisms. These studies demonstrate the value of integrating analytical chemistry, cultivation-based microbiology, genomic approaches, and ecological theory to uncover microbial processes that are often hidden in laboratory model systems.

Building on these discoveries, I will discuss efforts to develop evidence-based policy and ecology-informed strategies for microbial control and microbiome engineering. The latter include advancing bacteriophage-based therapeutics for difficult-to-treat infections and engineering phage and microbial communities for applications ranging from human health to energy-efficient wastewater treatment. Together, these projects illustrate how a mechanistic understanding of microbial ecology can be translated into innovative interventions that move beyond conventional antimicrobial approaches.

By connecting fundamental questions in microbial ecology and evolution with applied challenges in medicine, the built environment, and environmental biotechnology, this work transforms our ability to predict, manipulate, and design microbial communities for healthier and more sustainable futures.

Bio:

Dr. Erica Marie Hartmann is an environmental microbiologist interested in the interaction between anthropogenic chemicals and microorganisms, as well as bio-inspired mechanisms for controlling microbial communities. Her career began at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She then moved to Arizona State University where she was the first graduate of the interdisciplinary Biological Design PhD program. She had two postdoctoral positions, the first, supported by a Fulbright, at the Commission for Atomic Energy in France. She began leading studies on antimicrobial chemicals and microbes found in indoor dust during her second postdoc at the Biology and the Built Environment Center at the University of Oregon. She is currently an associate professor at Northwestern University in the department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, with affiliations in Pulmonary Medicine and the Center for Synthetic Biology. She was awarded an NSF CAREER to support her work on antimicrobial textiles and is leading an investigation of the respiratory tract microbiome in the NIH-funded Successful Clinical Response In Pneumonia Therapy (SCRIPT) Systems Biology Center. She is further designing new antimicrobial strategies based on bacteriophages.

ABSTRACT

Transportation systems are ultimately shaped by human decisions, and in turn, they shape how people access opportunities, respond to change, and experience their communities. This seminar traces the evolution of my research from understanding individual travel behavior and the adoption of mobility innovations to examining transportation’s broader implications for accessibility, resilience, public health, and infrastructure transitions. I will discuss how behavioral science, data-driven methods, and emerging AI approaches can help us move toward more human-centered infrastructure systems. Across these applications, the central question is: How can we better understand human behavior to design transportation and infrastructure systems that work better for people and communities?

BIO

Amanda Stathopoulos is an Associate Professor and William Patterson Junior Professorship Chair in Civil and Environmental Engineering at Northwestern University. She received her PhD in Transportation Economics from the University of Trieste and completed postdoctoral training at EPFL’s Transportation and Mobility Laboratory. Her research focuses on travel behavior modeling for passenger and freight systems, with an emphasis on how individuals, communities, and businesses make mobility and logistics decisions in response to technological change and disruptive events. Her work combines quantitative and qualitative methods to study the adoption of new mobility and freight solutions and their implications for transportation systems. Her research spans emerging mobility and automation, freight and logistics, public transit, accessibility, and transportation resilience.

Stathopoulos has served as Vice Chair of the TRB Travel Forecasting Committee, on the TRB Standing Committee on Statistical Methods, and on the board of the Zephyr Foundation. Her research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Transportation, and the Health Effects Institute, and she is a recipient of the NSF CAREER Award.

Regular registration for Winter quarter begins

TBD

Dissertation, PhD Final Exam, and change of grade forms due to TGS for Fall PhD candidates

Thanksgiving Vacation begins at 6:00 PM (No classes, University offices closed)

Fall Classes Resume

Fall classes end

Fall Exams begin

Fall exams end

The ceremony will take place on Saturday, December 12 in Pick-Staiger Concert Hall, 50 Arts Circle Drive.

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Winter Recess Starts - University Closed Through January 1st, 2027

Winter classes begin

No classes- Martin Luther King Jr. Day