Sunny Jiang

Sunny Jiang is a Professor in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at the University of California, Irvine, with a joint appointment in the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department. Her research integrates environmental microbiological and engineering principles to address critical challenges in water treatment, microbial ecology, and public health.

Research projects in her Applied Environmental Microbiology Laboratory (AEML) focus on:

• Wastewater-based surveillance for pathogens like SARS-CoV-2
• Antibiotic resistance dynamics in water systems
• Advanced biodegradation techniques for toxins
• Biofouling mitigation in desalination systems
• Microbial risk assessment under climate change

Key scientific contributions include:

• NSF Graduate Research Fellowship (awarded to Katherine Brenner)
• Development of microfluidic portable pathogen analysis systems
• Leadership in climate change-microbial risk modeling
• Innovations in nanobubble technology for wastewater systems

Notable students include Dr. Hunter Quon (PhD Environmental Engineering) and Katherine Brenner (NSF Fellow). Her lab actively engages in interdisciplinary work spanning water quality, biotechnology, and health risk assessment.