Christine Pu

Graduate Student Research Funding | 2018 - 2019 Academic Year

Tracking the Culprit: Quantifying Sources of Campylobacter Transmission Routes in Rural India through Next Generation Microbial Tools

Campylobacter is one of the leading culprits of diarrheal diseases. It is often endemic to low-resource settings, yet little is known about its transmission routes in the environment. This observational, cross-sectional study will measure campylobacter concentrations in samples of soil, fomite surfaces, drinking water, hand rinses, and human and animal feces across 75 households and 15 schools in India. Positive isolates will be molecularly characterized using polymerase chain reaction. Regression analyses will identify potential associations with water, sanitation, and hygiene access and behaviors. Quantitative microbial risk analysis will be conducted to model human health risk and elucidate key transmission pathways.

Christine Pu, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Christine Pu is a PhD student in environmental engineering and sciences. She holds a BEng in chemical engineering from McGill University. Pu’s experience with compiling an environmental impact assessment report for a local community water project in Kenya ignited her passion for the development, water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH), and environmental resource management sectors. Since then, she has worked closely with The World Bank on a poverty diagnostic study of the WASH sector in Tajikistan and with Engineers Without Borders Canada on extracting meaningful learnings from organization failures across their ventures in Sub-Saharan Africa. At Stanford, Pu is interested in elucidating the transmission routes of drinking water pathogens and understanding the impacts of different governance structures on system sustainability. Pu is conducting research in rural India, where she spends her time understanding the etiology of campylobacter infections in children and understanding the key factors that stand in the way of WASH infrastructure sustainability in schools.

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