A Path to Cleaner Water Around the World

Alyssa Rorie first learned about the global water crisis while watching a movie in an eighth-grade science class. While watching scenes showing communities without access to safe drinking water, she says she wondered why, if safe water is essential to survival, so many people don’t have access to it.

“That was a question that motivated me to want to know more about the crisis and contribute more to that field of research,” says Rorie, who is pursuing a doctorate in geography and environmental engineering at the Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering.

That motivation, paired with an interest in chemistry, carried her through high school honors chemistry classes, a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering, and research on using electrochemistry to remove contaminants from water.

At Hopkins, Rorie focuses on disinfection byproducts, which result from the water treatment process. While the use of chlorine inactivates pathogens, reducing the risk of waterborne illnesses, it can also react with organic matter in the source water. This interaction with plants, pesticides, and pharmaceuticals produces byproducts that may pose risks to human health. The EPA currently regulates 11 disinfection byproducts, but scientists have identified more than 700, and these could also pose risks.

Rorie is working to address this problem from two angles. In the Prasse Lab, she monitors how disinfection byproducts are formed and tests scenarios in which they may be less likely to be created. Her work in the Ruggero Rossi Group tests electrocoagulation—a process that uses an electrical current to generate flocs that destabilize, aggregate, and remove contaminants—as a way to reduce organic matter before disinfection.

Her research is supported by the Vivien Thomas Scholars Initiative, a Bloomberg Philanthropies–funded program that supports students from a broad range of academic backgrounds in pursuing STEM PhDs at Hopkins. As a Vivien Thomas Scholar, Rorie receives funding and a community of peers and faculty mentors.

“Because I’m not tied to a certain grant, I’m able to develop my own research project and have more autonomy in my work,” Rorie says. “The initiative has also given me a lot of connections to peers and faculty and has made me feel a lot more supported in this era of my life.”

As Rorie works in her labs in Ames Hall, she is reminded of another Hopkins engineering student with a passion for clean water. Abel Wolman, A&S 1913, Engr 1915, was one of Hopkins’ first engineering graduates. Wolman and his classmate Linn Enslow developed a formula for using chlorination as a way to eliminate pathogens in water and reduce the risk of waterborne illnesses, like typhoid and dysentery. While other scientists had been experimenting with chlorination, Wolman and Enslow were the first to devise a formula to calculate the proper amount of chlorine based on factors like bacterial content and acidity.

In 1919, Wolman applied the technique to Maryland’s drinking water, and by 1930, typhoid cases dropped by 92% in the state. Water treatment plants across the world adopted the technique.

“Wolman and I share an interest and passion for making sure the water delivered to communities worldwide is safe to drink,” Rorie says. “And I’m really honored to walk the same halls that he did and try to continue the research he started all those years ago.”

She says she hopes her findings will expand access to clean water to communities that depend on untreated surface water, especially in parts of sub-Saharan Africa, where that dependence causes widespread waterborne illnesses. It’s a goal that would help her accomplish the mission she set for herself in childhood.

“I want to try and make sure that 20 years down the line the risk of waterborne illnesses isn’t something that people have to worry about,” Rorie says.