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Jeseth Delgado Vela

Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Civil and Environmental Engineering
Wilkinson 203, Box 90287, Durham, NC 27708
121 Hudson Hall, Durham, NC 27708

Overview


Dr. Jeseth Delgado Vela joined Duke University as an Assistant Professor in August 2023. Her work focuses on leveraging environmental biotechnology to improve urban water infrastructure. She integrates molecular tools and modeling to understand how microbial community interactions and dynamics affect engineered water treatment systems. Dr. Delgado Vela earned a Ph.D. and M.S. in Environmental Engineering from the University of Michigan, and a B.S. in Civil Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin. Prior to joining Duke, she was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Howard University. She was a recipient of the Ford Foundation Dissertation Award (2016), was named an Early Career Research Fellow by the Gulf Research Program (2022), and was awarded an NSF CAREER Award (2022).

An updated CV is available here: https://duke.box.com/v/jdv-cv-webversion

Current Appointments & Affiliations


Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering · 2023 - Present Civil and Environmental Engineering, Pratt School of Engineering

In the News


Published November 15, 2023
Meet Duke’s new climate faculty of 2023
Published July 28, 2023
Optimizing Microbial Communities for Wastewater Treatment

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Recent Publications


Optimizing models for the prediction of one step ahead extreme flows to wastewater treatment plants using different synthetic sampling methods.

Journal Article Journal of environmental management · September 2025 High-flow events that significantly impact Water Resource Recovery Facility (WRRF) operations are rare, but accurately predicting these flows could improve treatment operations. Data-driven modeling approaches could be used; however, high flow events that ... Full text Open Access Cite
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Recent Grants


Duke University Program in Environmental Health

Inst. Training Prgm or CMEMentor · Awarded by National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences · 2019 - 2029

NSF Engineering Research Center for Precision Microbiome Engineering (PreMiEr)

ResearchInvestigator · Awarded by National Science Foundation · 2022 - 2027

CAREER: Quorum enhanced sustainable treatment of nitrogen (QuEST-N)

ResearchPrincipal Investigator · Awarded by National Science Foundation · 2023 - 2027

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Education, Training & Certifications


University of Michigan, Ann Arbor · 2018 Ph.D.
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor · 2014 M.S.
University of Texas, Austin · 2012 B.S.