Heather N. Bischel

September marks the end of another academic year and the beginning of the next. The past year has certainly been one of personal and professional growth for myself, and I imagine for our whole team. The Bischel group met together last week for an overnight research retreat at the Quail Ridge Research Reserve to reflect on the past and upcoming year, and to hang out. We lucked out with amazing weather and a beautiful view of Lake Berryessa.

This past year, I was excited to share results from our group’s hard work at various research meetings and events. I co-chaired a session on water quality monitoring at the North America SETAC meeting in Sacramento, which included presentations by Wenting on suspect screening of PFAS and by Hannah on virus detection by flow cytometry. I presented at the Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors (AEESP) meeting in Arizona and the Bay Area WASH Symposium at UC Berkeley, sharing results from Dani Peguero’s MS thesis on treatment of fecal sludge and opportunities for insect production from sludge.  We’re excited for Dani, who plans to begin a PhD in Switzerland at ETH and Eawag. Sharing Olivia and Madison’s research on woodchip bioreactors, I presented at the California Environmental Protection Agency for the Department of Pesticide Regulation’s Best Management Practices (BMP) Symposium and research collaborators meetings. It has been a new experience for me to present work done by my students, and I’m honored to have such a fantastic team to work with!

Several congratulations are also in order: Wenting and Olivia both received travel awards for their presentations at the Norther California section of the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemsitry (SETAC). Congratulations to our summer undergraduate visiting research, Yuhong (Rain) Hu, who received the UC Davis GREAT Summer Research award for her protein docking simulations with perfluorinated chemicals. Congrats to Hannah, who received an American Water Works Association scholarship, and a 2nd place finish on Jeopardy! We’re excited for Jeanne who is preparing for project work in India, where she’ll exchange ideas and work on resource recovery projects with IIT Madras in the Winter quarter. Jeanne also launched Team AGUA (Adruino Graduate and Undergraduate Allstars) as a way to develop skills in electronics, water quality sensors, and controls. Under Jeanne’s guidance, the team developed a chlorine dosing demonstration unit that we will use this Fall in ECI 140A. In August, Olivia and Madison presented to a team of researchers, scientists and stakeholders at Moss Landing Marine Labs, garnering valuable feedback on their research.

Finally we bid farewell to a few of group members, and we’re excited to see where their life and work take them. Jacob Newman graduated and is working on his MS in Environmental Engineering at UC Berkeley. Undergraduate research Jeil Oh returned to South Korea to finish up his studies. And we wish Kylie Bodle well in her next adventures working for a startup in Montana!

Hannah Safford rocked her performance on Jeopardy this week!  Congratulations Hannah!

More coverage available from the Sacramento Bee: https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article232456282.html

Sanitation sewers are expensive and in many low-income urban settlements, they are infeasible. Container-based sanitation offers a low-cost option for affordable sanitation.

In order to improve the safety of container-based sanitation systems, I worked with Tim Julian and Tamar Kohn’s teams as Eawag and EPFL to evaluate microbial health risks for sanitation service workers employed in a container-based urine collection system in Durban, South Africa.

Unlike a typical honey bucket or “luggable loo” portable toilets, the containers used in Durban’s system divert urine away from feces and into a 20 L jerry can that is connected to the outside of of the latrine structure. The cans are hauled away by hand and the urine was processed into a struvite fertilizer.

We modeled this process using videography and field sampling to assess the transmission of human pathogens in the urine. The handles and outside of the jerry can used to transport the urine were the greatest source of risk in the process and should be disinfected regularly to reduce potential microbial health risks.

The Container-based sanitation alliance (https://www.cbsa.global/) offers a great resource for learning about entrepreneurship in this space that is bringing safe and affordable sanitation into the reach of families and communities in dense urban areas.

Our manuscript is now available in Environmental Science & Technology and will be open access thanks to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

This past Friday, I came together with family and dear friends and colleagues to celebrate the life of my dad, David Bischel, who passed away on April 25, 2019. My dad approached life with humility and a sense of humor, always full of funny stories about his adventures in the woods. His character and values shined through in his interactions with others. He deeply valued his friendships, which he kept for his entire life. His friend and colleague Chris Nance remembered my dad saying, “Foresters manage their lands like their friendships — for centuries at a time.”

In college, my dad pursued his love of the outdoors, graduating with a B.S. in Renewable Natural Resources with an emphasis in Wildlife and Fisheries Biology from the University of California, Davis. He was a member of the Theta Chi Fraternity and a tight end for the UC Davis Aggies football team for four years. He fostered his lifelong passion for forestry and Cal Bears football at the University of California, Berkeley, where he obtained a second B.S. in Forestry and Conservation.

My dad was a true steward of forestry and conservation with a 44-year career dedicated to forest management and sustainability. He was forestry manager for Southern Pacific Land Company’s 220,000-acre Mt. Shasta District, a job that brought he and my mom to Mt. Shasta where I was born. We later moved to Auburn, where he worked for a biofuels energy facility. For 22 years he served as the president and chief executive officer of the California Forestry Association (CalForests). He was highly respected by his peers and considered a gentle giant of the forestry industry by many. He served in a leadership capacity with many professional and community organizations including Chairman of the National Forest Industry Associations Council, President of the California Licensed Foresters Association, and Chairman of the Northern California Society of American Foresters. He also served as Chairman of the National Council of Forestry Association Executives and the Executive Officer of the California State Board of Forestry’s Professional Foresters Licensing Program. He was most recently a member of the Board of Directors of the California Fire Safe Council and the Pacific Watershed Lands Stewardship Council, and a member of the National Forest Industry Labor-Management Committee’s Board of Trustees.

My dad was recognized through many awards and honors. Perhaps his greatest honor, however, was the impact he left on our forests. Mark Rentz, President and Founder of Integrated Natural Resources Management, stated, “As a fellow foresters we always understood that what we contributed to making our forests healthy and sustainable would long outlive us. This is Dave’s legacy.”

His full obituary is available here. A tribute from the California Fire Safe Council is available here. The California State Assembly closed with a tribute to my dad on April 29, 2019. District 5 Assemblyman Frank Bigelow and District 1 Assemblyman Brian Dahle spoke on his behalf.

The US Bureau of Reclamation recently announced that Hannah Safford and Heather Bischel were selected to receive the top prize of $40,000 in the Pathogen Monitoring Stage 1 Challenge.

Fun fact: The prize was announced shortly after Hannah returned from a trip to Burbank to compete on Jeopardy!

The Bureau seeks to optimize the design and operations of advanced water treatment facilities. I sense a future Jeopardy question in the works.

For more information: https://www.usbr.gov/newsroom/stories/detail.cfm?RecordID=65303