Margaret Stevenson

Dr. Margaret Stevenson is an Assistant Professor in the Forschungsbereich Ingenieurhydrologie at TU Wien. Her research focuses on contaminant transport in aquifers, microbial water quality, and emerging contaminants like PFAS and microplastics. She leads projects on groundwater filtration systems and pathogen transport dynamics, with particular attention to riverbank filtration sites in the Danube Basin.

Her work bridges laboratory-scale experiments and field applications, including innovative methods for soil moisture measurement in gravel lysimeters. Stevenson collaborates widely on interdisciplinary water resource projects, addressing challenges like climate adaptation and source tracking of faecal pollution using molecular diagnostics. She has pioneered surrogate models for studying Cryptosporidium and adenovirus behavior in limestone aquifers.

Key contributions include upscaling microbial transport processes from columns to field conditions, evaluating PFAS distribution in groundwater, and assessing microplastic interactions with viruses in sand media. Her research informs setback distance guidelines for aquifer protection and drinking water safety standards.

Stevenson's current projects investigate PFAS contamination in riverbank filtration systems and co-transport mechanisms of microplastics with human pathogens. She is a principal investigator in the Protozoan Mimics initiative validating surrogate particles for environmental studies.