Jeseth Delgado Vela

Research Interests

Biofilms in the urban water cycle, nitrogen cycling microbial communities, public health surveillance via wastewater, and microbial communication in biofilms

Bio

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

Education

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

Positions

• Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Awards, Honors, and Distinctions

• National Science Foundation CAREER Awards - CBET. National Science Foundation (NSF). 2022

Courses Taught

• CEE 701: Graduate Colloquium
• CEE 692: Independent Study: Advanced Topics in Civil and Environmental Engineering
• CEE 690: Advanced Topics in Civil and Environmental Engineering

Publications

• Al-Faliti M, Wang P, Smith AL, Delgado Vela J. Phage phylogeny, molecular signaling, and auxiliary antimicrobial resistance in aerobic and anaerobic membrane bioreactors. Water research. 2024 Jun;256:121620.
• Delgado Vela J, Philo SE, Brown J, Taniuchi M, Cantrell M, Kossik A, et al. Moving beyond Wastewater: Perspectives on Environmental Surveillance of Infectious Diseases for Public Health Action in Low-Resource Settings. Environment and Health. 2024 Jan 1;
• Philo SE, De León KB, Noble RT, Zhou NA, Alghafri R, Bar-Or I, et al. Wastewater surveillance for bacterial targets: current challenges and future goals. Applied and environmental microbiology. 2024 Jan;90(1):e0142823.
• Wang P, Zarei-Baygi A, Delgado Vela J, Smith AL. Metagenomic Analysis of the Antibiotic Resistance Risk between an Aerobic and Anaerobic Membrane Bioreactor. ACS ES and T Water. 2023 Jul 14;3(7):1865–73.
• Delgado Vela J, Al-Faliti M. Emerging investigator series: the role of phage lifestyle in wastewater microbial community structures and functions: insights into diverse microbial environments. Environmental Science: Water Research and Technology. 2023 Jun 2;9(8):1982–91.
• Delgado Vela J, Boltz JP. Innovations in Process Engineering. Water environment research : a research publication of the Water Environment Federation. 2023 May;95(5):e10842.
• Fofana R, Parsons M, Bachmann M, Jones K, Delgado Vela J, Akyon B, et al. Robustness of partial denitrification-anammox (PdNA) in filters with methanol and glycerol as carbon sources. Environmental Science: Water Research and Technology. 2023 Jan 24;9(4):1124–36.
• Delgado Vela J, Gordon KJ, Klatt JM, Dick GJ, Love NG. Integrated Modeling and Lab-Scale Investigations Demonstrate the Impact of Sulfide on a Membrane Aerated Biofilm Reactor. ACS ES and T Water. 2022 Dec 9;2(12):2388–99.
• Al-Faliti M, Kotlarz N, McCall C, Harris AR, Smith AL, Stadler LB, et al. Comparing Rates of Change in SARS-CoV-2 Wastewater Load and Clinical Cases in 19 Sewersheds Across Four Major Metropolitan Areas in the United States. ACS ES and T Water. 2022 Nov 11;2(11):2233–42.
• Fofana R, Peng B, Huynh H, Sajjad M, Jones K, Al-Omari A, et al. Erratum: Media selection for anammox-based polishing filters: Balancing anammox enrichment and retention with filtration function. Water environment research : a research publication of the Water Environment Federation. 2022 Jun;94(6):e10753.
• Fofana R, Huynh H, Jones K, Delgado Vela J, Long C, Chandran K, et al. Mainstream partial denitrification-anammox in sand and expanded clay deep-bed polishing filters under practical loading rates and backwashing conditions. Water environment research : a research publication of the Water Environment Federation. 2022 May;94(5):e10728.
• Fofana R, Peng B, Huynh H, Sajjad M, Jones K, Al-Omari A, et al. Media selection for anammox-based polishing filters: Balancing anammox enrichment and retention with filtration function. Water environment research : a research publication of the Water Environment Federation. 2022 May;94(5):e10724.
• Delgado Vela J, McClary-Gutierrez JS, Al-Faliti M, Allan V, Arts P, Barbero R, et al. Impact of Disaster Research on the Development of Early Career Researchers: Lessons Learned from the Wastewater Monitoring Pandemic Response Efforts. Environmental science & technology. 2022 Apr;56(8):4724–7.
• Fofana R, Bachmann M, Jones K, Vela JD, Akyon B, Liu W, et al. Advancing full-scale partial denitrification-anammox (PdNA) filters: design and operation guidelines. In: 95th Water Environment Federation Technical Exhibition and Conference, WEFTEC 2022. 2022. p. 892–7.
• Coffman MM, Guest JS, Wolfe MK, Naughton CC, Boehm AB, Vela JD, et al. Preventing Scientific and Ethical Misuse of Wastewater Surveillance Data. Environmental science & technology. 2021 Sep;55(17):11473–5.
• Delgado Vela J, Bristow LA, Marchant HK, Love NG, Dick GJ. Sulfide alters microbial functional potential in a methane and nitrogen cycling biofilm reactor. Environmental microbiology. 2021 Mar;23(3):1481–95.
• Fofana R, Bachmann M, Jones K, Delgado-Vela J, Benay A, Liu W, et al. Carbon Source Selection for Deep-bed Partial Denitrification – Anammox (PdNA) Polishing Filters. In: 94th Annual Water Environment Federation Technical Exhibition and Conference, WEFTEC 2021. 2021. p. 2294–9.
• McClary-Gutierrez JS, Aanderud ZT, Al-Faliti M, Duvallet C, Gonzalez R, Guzman J, et al. Standardizing data reporting in the research community to enhance the utility of open data for SARS-CoV-2 wastewater surveillance. Environmental science : water research & technology. 2021 Jan;9.
• Bivins A, North D, Ahmad A, Ahmed W, Alm E, Been F, et al. Wastewater-Based Epidemiology: Global Collaborative to Maximize Contributions in the Fight Against COVID-19. Environmental science & technology. 2020 Jul;54(13):7754–7.
• Bekele ZA, Delgado Vela J, Bott CB, Love NG. Sensor-mediated granular sludge reactor for nitrogen removal and reduced aeration demand using a dilute wastewater. Water environment research : a research publication of the Water Environment Federation. 2020 Jul;92(7):1006–16.
• Fofana R, Huynh H, Chen H, Jones K, Al-Omari A, Bott C, et al. Partial denitrification – anammox (PdNA) implementation in polishing filters: Performance and Phosphorus limitations. In: 93rd Water Environment Federation Technical Exhibition and Conference 2020, WEFTEC 2020. 2020. p. 2107–23.
• Ali P, Delgado-Vela J, Liu L, Shaw A, Stadler LB. Quantifying and assessing wet-weather resilience of urban water resource recovery facilities. In: 93rd Water Environment Federation Technical Exhibition and Conference 2020, WEFTEC 2020. 2020. p. 3350–8.
• Sakowski E, Uritskiy G, Cooper R, Gomes M, McLaren MR, Meisel JS, et al. Current State of and Future Opportunities for Prediction in Microbiome Research: Report from the Mid-Atlantic Microbiome Meet-up in Baltimore on 9 January 2019. mSystems. 2019 Oct;4(5):e00392–e00319.
• Fofana R, Peng B, Huynh H, Jones K, Al-Omari A, Bott C, et al. Media selection for enrichment of anammox in polishing filters. In: WEFTEC 2019 - 92nd Annual Water Environment Federation’s Technical Exhibition and Conference. 2019. p. 64–72.
• Bekele ZA, Delgado Vela J, Bott CB, Love NG. Sensor-mediated control for aerobic granular sludge process treating mainstream anaerobic effluent. In: 91st Annual Water Environment Federation Technical Exhibition and Conference, WEFTEC 2018. 2019. p. 3806–12.
• Stadler LB, Delgado Vela J, Jain S, Dick GJ, Love NG. Elucidating the impact of microbial community biodiversity on pharmaceutical biotransformation during wastewater treatment. Microbial biotechnology. 2018 Nov;11(6):995–1007.
• Delgado Vela J, Dick GJ, Love NG. Sulfide inhibition of nitrite oxidation in activated sludge depends on microbial community composition. Water research. 2018 Jul;138:241–9.
• Delgado-Vela J, Alemayehu Z, McFarland A, Arcelay A, Martin KJ, Bott C, et al. The membrane aerated biofilm reactor for nitrogen removal from mainstream anaerobic processes. In: WEFTEC 2016 - 89th Water Environment Federation Annual Technical Exhibition and Conference. 2016. p. 1169–76.
• Delgado Vela J, Stadler LB, Martin KJ, Raskin L, Bott CB, Love NG. Prospects for biological nitrogen removal from anaerobic effluents during mainstream wastewater treatment. Environmental Science and Technology Letters. 2015 Sep 8;2(9):234–44.
• Vela JD, Martin K, McFarland A, Beaton N, Stadler L, Skerlos S, et al. Removing nitrogen from effluents of anaerobic wastewater treatment processes: Understanding control and operation through biofilm modeling. In: ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS OF THE AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY. 2015.
• Delgado-Vela J, Martin KJ, Beaton N, McFarland A, Stadler LB, Bott CB, et al. Nutrient removal from mainstream anaerobic processes using a membrane biofilm reactor and a granular sludge sequencing batch reactor. In: 88th Annual Water Environment Federation Technical Exhibition and Conference, WEFTEC 2015. 2015. p. 1266–73.
• Delgado-Vela J, Martin KJ, Stadler LB, Bott C, Skerlos SJ, Raskin L, et al. Nutrient removal from mainstream anaerobic effluents: Linking biofilm modeling to experimental design. In: 87th Annual Water Environment Federation Technical Exhibition and Conference, WEFTEC 2014. 2014. p. 6057–60.
• Cook S, Delgado-Vela J, Stadler L. Advancing the success of engineering service projects from the classroom to the field. In: 86th Annual Water Environment Federation Technical Exhibition and Conference, WEFTEC 2013. 2013. p. 1843.

In The News

• Meet Duke’s new climate faculty of 2023 (Nov 15, 2023 | Duke Stories)
• Optimizing Microbial Communities for Wastewater Treatment (Jul 28, 2023 | Pratt School of Engineering)