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Amy R. Sapkota

Professor & Director, Maryland Institute for Applied Environmental Health

Dr. Sapkota is an MPower Professor of Environmental Health Sciences and the Director of the Maryland Institute for Applied Environmental Health. She also directs the CONSERVE Center of Excellence, the UMD Global STEWARDS NSF Research Traineeship and the Global FEWture Alliance. Her research is highly applied, focusing on microbial water quality and the development of water reuse solutions that advance climate resilience and are protective of public health. Dr. Sapkota received a PhD from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, an MPH from the Yale School of Public Health and a BS from the University of Maryland College Park.

Contact

ars@umd.edu

SPH | Room 2234S

(301) 405-1772

Departments/Units

Areas of Interest

Core Faculty

Water Quality; Water Reuse, Food and Health; Environmental Microbiology; Exposure Assessment; Environmental Microbial Genomics; Food-Energy-Water Nexus

Dr. Sapkota is an MPower Professor of Environmental Health Sciences and the Director of the Maryland Institute for Applied Environmental Health. She is also the Director of CONSERVE: A Center of Excellence at the Nexus of Sustainable Water Reuse, Food & Health, the Director of the UMD Global STEWARDS (STEM Training at the Nexus of Energy, Water Reuse and Food Systems), NSF Research Traineeship (NRT), and the Global FEWture Alliance.

The mission of CONSERVE is to facilitate the adoption of transformative on‐farm water treatment solutions that enable the safe use of recyled irrigation water on food crops. The overarching goal of the UMD Global STEWARDS NSF NRT is for graduate trainees to become adept at working and communicating across food-energy-water (FEW) disciplines, enabling transformative discoveries that can only be realized through transdisciplinary approaches and systems-based thinking. The mission of the Global FEWture Alliance is to alleviate food, energy, and water insecurity, to advance environmental and global public health, and to bolster community resilience in a changing climate.

Dr. Sapkota received a PhD in Environmental Health Sciences from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, an MPH in Environmental Health Sciences from the Yale School of Public Health and a BS in Biology from the University of Maryland College Park. After completing her doctorate, she engaged in post-doctoral fellowships at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Environmental Microbial Genomics Group at Ecole Centrale de Lyon in Lyon, France.

Several notable awards that Dr. Sapkota has received include the 2023 Woman of Influence Award, the 2022 MPower Professorship, the 2019 Leda Amick Wilson Mentoring Award, the 2018 Research and Development Award, the 2015 Jerry P. Wrenn Outstanding Service Award, and the 2012 Eric Mood New Professional Award. In 2017, she represented the Core Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program and the United States as a Fulbright Senior Researcher in Chitwan, Nepal.

Dr. Sapkota's research interests lie in the areas of environmental microbiology, environmental microbial genomics, exposure assessment and environmental epidemiology, and she has published over 95 journal articles in these areas. Her research group evaluates the complex relationships between environmental microbial exposures and human infectious diseases, with a special focus on assessing the public health impacts associated with water reuse. Much of her group's work seeks to 1) characterize the microbiome of recycled water sources; 2) understand how direct and indirect exposures to these sources can impact the human microbiome and infectious disease risk; and 3) advance water treatment and reuse solutions that advance climate resilience and protect public health.

Dr. Sapkota is seeking talented undergraduates, graduate students and post-docs to join her group. In particular, her lab will have openings for Master's and Doctoral students entering in the 2024-2025 academic year. She currently serves as a mentor to students in the following programs: MPH, MS and PhD in Environmental Health Sciences; PhD in the UMD MEES program.

PhD, Environmental Health Science, 2005

Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

MPH, Environmental Health Science, 1999

Yale School of Public Health

BS, Biology, 1999

University of Maryland College Park

MIEH 309 Environmental Health Research

MIEH 690 UMD Global STEWARDS: Experiential Exploration of Innovations at the Nexus of Food, Energy, and Water Systems (INFEWS)

MIEH 699 UMD Global STEWARDS: Seminal Findings, and Research and Policy in Progress at the Food, Energy, Water Nexus

MIEH 785 Internship in Public Health

MIEH 786 Capstone Project in Public Health

Phi Sigma National Honor Society, 1994-97

Phi Kappa Phi National Honor Society, 1995-97

Golden Key National Honor Society, 1995-97

Phi Beta Kappa, University of Maryland College Park, May 1997

Gamma Award, Phi Beta Kappa, University of Maryland College Park, May 1997

National Network for Environmental Management Studies Fellowship, US EPA, 1998

Outstanding Employee Performance Award, Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, 2000

Cornelius W. Kruse Award for Outstanding Graduate Studies, Johns Hopkins, 2002

Delta Omega, Alpha Chapter, Honorary Public Health Society, 2005

Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Pre-doctoral Fellowship in Biological Sciences, 2001-2005

Eric Mood New Professional Award, Yale School of Public Health, 2012

Honoree, 6th Annual University-Wide Celebration of Scholarship & Research, University of Maryland College Park, May 2013

Honoree, 7th Annual University-Wide Celebration of Scholarship & Research, University of Maryland College Park, May 2014

Honoree, 8th Annual University-Wide Celebration of Scholarship & Research, University of Maryland College Park, May 2015.

Jerry P Wrenn Outstanding Service Award, University of Maryland School of Public Health, May 2015.

Honoree, 9th Annual University-Wide Celebration of Scholarship & Research, University of Maryland College Park, May 2016

Fulbright Senior Researcher Scholarship, Nepal, U.S. Department of State, January to June 2017

Research and Development Award, University of Maryland School of Public Health, May 2018.

Honoree, 11th Annual University-Wide Celebration of Scholarship & Research, University of Maryland College Park, May 2018.

Exemplary Researcher Recognition, Inaugural Maryland Research Excellence Celebration, University of Maryland College Park, February 2019.

Leda Amick Wilson Mentoring Award, University of Maryland School of Public Health, June 2019.

Honoree, Maryland Research Excellence Celebration, University of Maryland College Park, February 2020.

MPower Professorship, University of Maryland Strategic Partnership: MPowering the State, 2023-2025.

Woman of Influence Award. University of Maryland President’s Commission on Women’s Issues, April 2023.

Select publications from the past five years (out of a total of >95 articles):

Sapkota AR†. 2019. Water reuse, food production and public health: Adopting transdisciplinary, systems-based approaches to achieve water and food security in a changing climate. Environmental Research, 171, 576-580.

Chopyk J*, Nasko CJ, Allard S**, Callahan MT, Bui A, Ferelli AMC*, Chattopadhyay S, Mongodin EF, Pop M, Micallef S, Sapkota AR†. 2020. Metagenomic analysis of bacterial and viral assemblages from a freshwater creek and irrigated field reveals temporal and spatial dynamics. Science of the Total Environment, 205:135395.

Malayil L*, Chattopadhyay S, Kulkarni P**, Hittle L, Clark PI, Mongodin EF§, Sapkota AR§. 2020. Mentholation triggers brand-specific shifts in the bacterial microbiota of commercial cigarette products. Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology. 104; 6287–6297.

Murray R**, Cruz-Cano R, Nasko D, Blythe D, Ryan P, Boyle M, Wilson S, Sapkota AR†. 2020. Association between Private Drinking Water Wells and the Incidence of Campylobacteriosis in Maryland: An Ecological Analysis Using Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network (FoodNet) Data (2007-2016). Environmental Research [In Press].

Craddock HA*, Chattopadhyay S, Rjoub Y, Rosen D, Grief J, Lipchin C, Mongodin EF, Sapkota AR†. 2020. Antibiotic-resistant Escherichia coli and Klebsiella spp. in greywater reuse systems and pond water used for agricultural irrigation in the West Bank, Palestinian Territories. Environmental Research. 188:109777.

Malayil L**, Ramachandran P, Chattopadhyay S*, Cagle R, Hittle L, Ottesen A, Mongodin EF, Sapkota AR†. 2020. Metabolically-active bacteria in reclaimed water and ponds revealed using bromodeoxyuridine DNA labeling coupled with 16S rRNA and shotgun sequencing. Water Research. 184;116185.

Chopyk J*†, Nasko D, Allard S**, Bui A*, Pop M, Mongodin EF, Sapkota AR. 2020. Seasonal dynamics in taxonomy and function within bacterial and viral metagenomic assemblages recovered from a freshwater agricultural pond. Environmental Microbiome. 15;18.

Kulkarni P**, Olson ND, Bui AQ, Bradshaw RN, Del Collo LP, Hittle LE, Handy ET, Paulson JN, Ghurye J, Nasko DJ, East C, Kniel KE, Chiu PC, Mongodin EF, Pop M, Sharma M, Sapkota AR†. 2020. Zero-valent iron sand filtration can reduce human and plant pathogenic bacteria while increasing plant growth promoting bacteria in reclaimed water. Frontiers in Environmental Science. [In Press].

Zhu L**, Jiang C, Panthi S*, Allard SM**, Sapkota AR, Sapkota A†. 2021. Impact of high precipitation and temperature events on the distribution of emerging contaminants in surface water in the Mid-Atlantic, United States. Science of the Total Environment. 755;2:142552.