I am a water and resource-recovery scientist with more than twenty years of hands-on experience designing, sizing, installing, and repairing domestic and commercial water systems; from pumps and treatment trains to distribution and troubleshooting in the field. My career began on the tools and grew into leading projects that integrate rigorous analysis with practical implementation. I’ve worked within a municipal environmental department providing solid-waste and wastewater solutions and in private industry operating and improving water-management programs and wastewater-treatment plants. These roles taught me to balance compliance, cost, reliability, and maintainability while keeping end users front and center.
My academic path has always focused on turning waste into value. I earned a master’s degree in sustainability focused on composting and anaerobic digestion, completed a PhD on the agronomic use of digestate as a biofertilizer, and pursued postdoctoral research on pyrolysis and by-product valorization. This progression of composting, AD, digestate, and pyrolysis, equips me to evaluate full resource cycles and design interventions that are both scientifically sound and operationally realistic.
At Arizona State University, I've deepened my expertise in household water treatment and alternative supplies, including atmospheric water harvesting. I routinely conduct comprehensive water analyses, covering first-line indicators through ions, metals, and biologicals to diagnose problems accurately and deliver tailored, evidence-based solutions for households and small systems. Field pilots and lab validation inform my recommendations, ensuring they are feasible to operate, easy to maintain, and responsive to local constraints.
Equally important, I have built a practice around social engagement, co-designing solutions with communities to close the gap between technology, science, and real-world application. Whether training residents on point-of-use systems, interpreting lab results in accessible language, or coordinating with stakeholders to align budgets and operations, I prioritize outcomes people can sustain.
I am a native Spanish speaker with professional-level English, comfortable working across technical and community settings. Colleagues describe me as self-motivated, analytically rigorous, and highly collaborative, a dependable team player who moves seamlessly from fieldwork to data analysis to stakeholder meetings. I bring a field-to-lab mindset, an eye for root-cause diagnosis, and a clear bias for maintainable, cost-effective solutions.