Dr. Cook’s research promotes the design and development of sustainable water systems and civil infrastructure. Dr. Cook’s research takes a systems perspective to identify the most crucial components and best ways to improve a system’s performance. Specifically, she couples biological process models with experimentation and sustainability tools, like life cycle assessment and life cycle costing. With this approach, her research involves determining the operational limits of biological treatment systems, advancing technologies that recover resources from waste, integrating environmental and economic factors into the design and decision-making processes, and identifying strategic and appropriate implementations of a closed water treatment system.
keywords
wastewater treatment, environmental biotechnology, resource recovery from waste, sustainable design, sustainability-based decision-making, sustainable water system implementation, life cycle assessment, life cycle costing, social sustainability, multi-criteria decision analysis
