We are an independent research team from Virginia Tech (VT) volunteering our time, resources and expertise to help resolve scientific uncertainties associated with drinking water issues being reported (also, see here) in the City of Flint, MI.

Study Aims

a) To support citizen scientists concerned about public health, by empowering Flint residents and stakeholders with independent information about their tap water;

b) To study impacts of water age and current water quality on Flint’s water distribution systems as well as issues of elevated lead and opportunistic pathogens in premise plumbing (OPPPs),

c) To summarize findings from a and b to inform decision making and policy considerations, if necessary, on the part of both citizens and government agencies in the city,

d) To develop a comprehensive online repository (this website) as data and information become available.

Research Team and Training

Our work is being conducted with an open mind, and all our findings are backed by state-of-the-art analytical tools. We gratefully acknowledge the National Science Foundation’s* support for the following research grants: a) RAPID Response (CBET-1556258) grant and b) the Bridging the Gap Between Engineers and Society: Learning to Listen (EEC-1135328) grant. These and discretionary funds from Professor Marc Edwards help support our efforts to advance scientific understanding at this important research frontier of environmental engineering-infrastructure degradation-public health. Most members of our team are doing undergraduate or graduate research on these same subjects.

*Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed on this research website are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the National Science Foundation.

Ethics Statement

Team members Clark, Devine, Garner, Ji, Mantha, Martin, Masters, Metch, Nystrom, Rhoads, Richards, Roy, Tang and Zhu have also taken a graduate-level Engineering Ethics and the Public course at Virginia Tech co-developed and co-taught by Drs. Yanna Lambrinidou (Founder, Parents for Non-toxic Alternatives and Affiliate Faculty with the Science and Technology Studies program, VT) and Marc Edwards (Professor of Civil Engineering, VT). Interviews and interactions being conducted with the community and the stakeholders are, therefore, grounded in current ethnographic research and tools developed by Dr. Lambrinidou around ‘transformational listening’ (including three Learning to Listen aka L2L exercises). Dr. Lambrinidou’s research is available in peer-reviewed articles:

Research Team (Aug 2015-present)

Undergraduate Students: Madeleine Brouse, Margaret Carolan, Hanniyah Chapman, Kandace Donaldson, Sara Chergaoui*, Matthew Dowdle*, Kim Hughes*, Rebecca Jones, Mariana Martinez*, Philip Smith*, Alison Vick

Graduate Students (in alphabetical order): Taylor Bradley*, Christina Devine, Catherine Grey*, Anurag Mantha, Rebekah Martin, Jake Metch*, Victoria Nystrom*, Colin Richards*, Laurel Strom*, Owen Strom*, Ni “Joyce” Zhu

Post-docs/Research Scientists (in alphabetical order): Drs. Brandi Clark*, Dongjuan Dai, Emily Garner, Pan Ji*, Sheldon Masters*, Jeffrey Parks, Kelsey Pieper, William Rhoads, Siddhartha Roy, David “Otto” Schwake*, Min Tang, Fei Wang*

Staff: Cassandra Hockman

Principal Investigators: Dr. Marc Edwards, Dr. Amy Pruden, Dr. Joseph Falkinham III

* graduated and/or no longer at Virginia Tech

Inspiration

This website is inspired from WASAwatch (Dr. Yanna Lambrinidou), the West Virginia Water Crisis website (Dr. Krista Bryson), and Dr. Andy Whelton’s research during the WV water crisis. Their work serves as a model for public outreach and engagement, science communication, and advocacy.

Get in touch

Send us an email: flintwaterstudy@gmail.com

Student Leader/ Communications Director: Siddhartha Roy

GoFundMe Fundraising: Anurag Mantha

Web Outreach: Siddhartha Roy, William Rhoads, Anurag Mantha, Rebekah Martin

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Acknowledgements: Greatcitees.com for the Flint custom logo (licensed under a Creative Commons license and freely available for noncommercial use) present in our website banner/icons

(Original link: http://townmapsusa.com/d/map-of-flint-michigan-mi/flint_mi)