On April 26th, 2024 Christian White delivered his PhD Exit Talk to mark the completion of his doctoral degree obtained from the University of California, Berkeley.

TITLE: Anammox, Nitrogen, and Empire

ABSTRACT:
Unmitigated anthropogenic nitrogen pollution through the discharge of wastewater treatment effluent has the potential to cause deleterious environmental effects through eutrophication which results in the creation of anoxic zones, reduced water quality, and death of aquatic life. Anaerobic ammonium oxidation (anammox) is a biogeochemical process performed by bacteria that can be utilized to remove nitrogen from wastewater, alleviating nutrient loading to vulnerable surface waters. Anammox reactors harbor metabolically and phylogenetically diverse microbial communities that form a variety of mutualistic and antagonistic relationships that influence reactor performance and stability. This dissertation seeks to elucidate those microbial interactions through molecular and computational bioinformatics tools to construct a framework that can be used to model and predict the reactor microbial ecology and system behavior.

Essential to the utilization of anammox for wastewater treatment is a contextualization of anthropogenic nitrogen pollution within historical and sociopolitical frameworks structuring the modern world. Encompassed within these frameworks are themes of racial capitalism, settler colonialism, and neo-imperialism. The intersections of these phenomena with human imposed impacts on biogeochemical cycling in Earth systems carry broad implications for human and environmental health across varying spatial and temporal scales. This talk seeks to elucidate these connections to offer new perspective on the nature of engineering solutions for environmental issues.

DISSERTATION COMMITTEE:
Prof. Lisa Alvarez-Cohen (Chair), Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California, Berkeley
Prof. Kara Nelson, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California, Berkeley
Prof. Eoin Brodie, Earth and Environmental Sciences Area, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

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