Research Expertise and Interest

environmental microbiology, biodegradation of environmental contaminants, microbial carbon cycling, molecular tools for microbial ecology, metagenomics, biological hazardous waste treatment, bioremediation of groundwater pollutants

Research Description

Lisa Alvarez-Cohen is the Fred and Claire Sauer Professor, past-Chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and current Chair of the Faculty Senate at UC Berkeley.  Her research areas include biotransformation and fate of environmental water contaminants, environmental microbiology and ecology, bioremediation, biological wastewater nutrient removal, and application of molecular and isotopic techniques for studying environmental microbial communities.  She teaches both undergraduate and graduate courses in environmental microbiology, environmental engineering, and biological process engineering, and has co-authored the textbook Environmental Engineering Science.  She is a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology and a member of the National Academy of Engineering.  She has won a number of awards including the China 1,000 Talents National Award, the ASCE Simon W. Freese Environmental Engineering Award, the W. M. Keck Foundation Award for Engineering Teaching Excellence, and the National Science Foundation Young Investigator Award.

She received her Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering and Applied Science from Harvard University and her M.S. and Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering and Science from Stanford University.