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
Recent Publications
Assessing Resistome Host Range Across Water Reclamation in Three Geographically Distinct Communities using Hi-C Sequencing
Preprint · February 16, 2026 Full text CiteData-Driven Framework to Quantify Nitrogen Process Resilience at Wastewater Treatment Plants
Journal Article ACS Es and T Water · February 13, 2026 Wastewater treatment plants are routinely and increasingly impacted by abnormal influent flow variations, driven by extreme weather and aging infrastructure. This study introduces a data-driven framework that integrates statistical process control (SPC) wi ... Full text CiteCharting the future of wastewater-based epidemiology for vector-borne diseases: opportunities, challenges, and climate-driven needs
Journal Article Environmental Science Water Research and Technology · February 1, 2026 Vector-borne diseases (VBDs) pose a growing public health threat globally, driven by climate change, urbanization, and increasing human mobility. Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE), which has proven valuable for monitoring enteric and respiratory pathogen ... Full text Open Access CiteRecent Grants
Duke University Program in Environmental Health
Inst. Training Prgm or CMEMentor · Awarded by National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences · 2019 - 2029NSF Engineering Research Center for Precision Microbiome Engineering (PreMiEr)
ResearchInvestigator · Awarded by National Science Foundation · 2022 - 2027CAREER: Quorum enhanced sustainable treatment of nitrogen (QuEST-N)
ResearchPrincipal Investigator · Awarded by National Science Foundation · 2023 - 2027View All Grants