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 and M.S. at 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
Modeling the Resilience Performance of Houston's Wastewater Treatment Plant under Wet Weather Conditions
Journal Article Journal of Sustainable Water in the Built Environment · May 1, 2025 With increasing severity of wet weather events due to a changing climate, many municipal wastewater treatment plants are grappling with challenges in maintaining effective flow and effluent management. Compounded by aging wastewater infrastructure, it is i ... Full text CiteEvaluation of biofilm scouring methods on the nitrification efficiency in a pilot-scale membrane-aerated biofilm reactor
Journal Article Water Environment Research · February 27, 2025 Membrane-aerated biofilm reactors (MABRs) are being increasingly being implemented at full-scale for domestic wastewater treatment and effective biofilm control is critical to their performance. This study investigated the impact of three biofilm scouring ... Full text Link to item CiteResilience in Function, Microbial Community Structure, and Nitrifier Composition of Bench-Scale Biofilm Reactors during Wet Weather Disturbances
Journal Article ACS ES and T Water · February 14, 2025 Wet weather events, such as hurricanes and tropical storms, are on the rise globally due to climate change. Activated sludge systems are vulnerable to wet weather, as hydraulic overloading can cause a washout of biomass. Biofilm-based treatment technologie ... Full text CiteRecent Grants
NSF 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 - 2027Collaborative Research: URoL:ASC: Determining the relationship between genes and ecosystem processes to improve biogeochemical models for nutrient management
ResearchPrincipal Investigator · Awarded by National Science Foundation · 2024 - 2026View All Grants