Q: What motivated you to establish these collaborative platforms?
A: As it became clear that wastewater surveillance could add a lot of value to managing COVID-19, we recognized that collaboration beyond what is routine for academic research would be beneficial to advance the field and its potential contributions as rapidly as possible. We wanted to encourage others that work in this evolving field to share lessons learned and findings as quickly as possible so that others don’t repeat the same mistakes.
Q: What steps did you take to build this collaboration with researchers across the globe?
A: We wrote a forthcoming op-ed with 60 co-authors from all over the world, calling for collaboration and establishing a few platforms to support the effort. I bought a domain name and a Wix subscription and built a very
basic website over a weekend. On this website, we are curating the pre-prints and peer-reviewed manuscripts for wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) for COVID-19 as they are released.
Q: This is a really hot research area, what are you most proud of from this work?
A: We have also started a map showing the location of various collaborators. The website has had over 1,000 visits from 682 unique visitors in the last 4 weeks. To date, 117 different individuals have joined the Collaborative via the website, in addition to the 60 original co-authors. We also launched a Slack workspace for COVID-19 WBE. That space currently has 271 members. In the last 30 days over 3,000 messages and postings have been shared on this space. The last piece of the Collaborative is a
protocols.io workgroup that currently has 93 members working to develop reliable wastewater sampling methods.
Q: What do you feel is most unique about this research project?
A: We stood all this up from my attic office here in South Bend. It’s amazing what you can achieve with a vision and an internet connection. Wild times.
Q: As a Postdoctoral Fellow, how has ND-ECI helped you to grow?
A: ND-ECI allows me the opportunity to collaborate with colleagues from other disciplines. Together we can adapt methods from our specialized fields of study to address interdisciplinary challenges in novel ways. It's much easier to think outside your disciplinary box when your colleagues are from outside it as well.
