It’s a stark statistic: for 70 percent of the planet, water security is concern. Baylor’s environmental scientists, biologists, statisticians and computer scientists are compelled to meet this basic need in innovative ways, joining forces across disciplines to preserve and ensure access to clean water globally.

To address these challenges, you’ll find Baylor professors in the field, surveying bodies of water and natural resources both close to home and around the world, studying the impact of human activity and climate on future access. Or, they provide leadership in global summits and conferences, convening stakeholders to harness the power of focused insight that addresses tomorrow’s issues. They’re a part of innovative teams like the National Alliance for Water Innovation, providing leadership and insight to interdisciplinary teams. Or, they may be found at the computer, where collaborations at the intersection of water and data science yield insights beyond the grasp one of discipline alone.

At the heart of their work is a call to love one’s neighbor, to serve as an advocate for those vulnerable to changing global trends, and to prepare the next generation to take the baton with excellence in scholarship and a passion borne from a distinct call to serve.

Water is a basic need that’s challenged from a variety of angles—urbanization, climate, population growth, pollution—how do you approach a multifaceted problem from the lens of your own discipline?

Bryan Brooks:

Understanding complexity requires all of us, regardless of discipline, to think comprehensively and critically. We're interested in mechanisms and in understanding causality of these challenges. So that interface among the disciplines is very important.

We’re blessed to work with fantastic colleagues here, and Baylor’s secret sauce to scientific discovery is our culture. Our unique mission helps shape that. We work together with colleagues down the hall or in buildings across campus to put forth our energies together, align our creative juices toward understanding the world in which we live and addressing some of the greatest challenges that people face together.

Mandy Hering:

I’ve done a lot of work in engineered water systems, but as I’ve broadened that with colleagues, everything really points to this question: how do we improve access globally to water? But we come at it from fresh angles. The data sets that my colleagues collect in the field are constantly interesting and surprising to us as we match them up with statistical methods that are on the forefront of our field.

Greg Hamerly:

We have incredible people with whom we work closely. STEM fields have so much to offer in terms of analysis of data and problems, but you have to have great people who understand the problems that need to be solved. I’ve been lucky to partner with colleagues who understand these problems in water management and invasive species ecology and can formulate good questions. Then together we look for ways to use computation to help solve them.

How does that culture you describe impact Baylor water research beyond individual research projects?

Thad Scott:

I'm in the biology department, so collaborating outside of biology for me is with people in the environmental science, geosciences and statistical science departments. We have work funded by the National Institute of Health, and I would not have access to that type of funding with my discipline alone. We must have a toxicology and human health angle to the work and that requires collaboration. We study microorganisms that are potentially harmful to humans, but we're really interested in their ecology, why they thrive and why they live where they live. Our collaborators in environmental science explore the exposure side that causes risks to humans. Our geosciences colleagues help us understand the underlying chemistry, and our collaborators in statistics help us make predictions. Without those collaborators, the research wouldn't be possible.

So, it’s a benefit to me to be able to walk down the hall and talk to people whose interests complement mine. But it’s our students too. They get to know other interests and passions, build collaborative relationships and start that step now.

Greg Hamerly:

It benefits our students in so many ways. It can be easy to go through graduate school in a siloed mindset. Interdisciplinary work gives our students an appreciation of other disciplines and an ability to communicate with others. They don’t look at other fields like a black box and dismiss it.

And as we train them to address major challenges, they’re applying computer science to engage real problems that are meaningful to people around the world. They’re not just creating something to financially engineer the next stock market pick or solve someone’s homework using AI. We’re engaging their passions to make a difference.

Ryan McManamay:

We learn from one another. I learn from colleagues with different areas, and I learn from our collaborators in computer science and data science. It’s a reciprocal benefit for us and for our students. And when you have colleagues like you have at Baylor, instead of sharp elbows you find people who are great researchers and great teachers—and they’ve been great teachers to me as we elevate research projects beyond what they would be without that interdisciplinary environment.

Whether it’s Baylor’s work with the Department of Energy and the National Alliance for Water Innovation, editorship of American Chemical Society journals, or projects that impact policy, what does it mean for Baylor to have the opportunity to speak into these problems in meaningful ways?

Mandy Hering:

NAWI (funded by DOE) has been an interesting journey. We’re a part of a once-in-a-generation effort to think through our water systems. The goal of that project is to try to bring data science to bear on problems in environmental water systems and water and wastewater treatment systems. Having been a part of this for a few years, people are now coming to our team and asking us to be involved in additional projects where data plays a large role—not just myself, but former graduate students and other faculty members who've gotten drawn into this web. It's a web of influence that we hope continues to grow and expand and flourish. 

With MoWaTER (funded by NSF), we’ve built training programs for people in these fields where they can see specifically how data science can be used for them. We've run workshops for people in water and wastewater treatment who are already working in industry. We've now run workshops for graduate students in environmental engineering and environmental science from across the country to come and learn data science. 

Bryan Brooks:

I’m grateful that we’ve been able to be at the table on a variety of topics, convening others in Latin America or Asia to talk through local challenges, or on projects where we essentially think about moonshots. What are the big challenges that are out there? We have the chance to sit down with people from around the world, not just from academia but also from business and government. And we do it in a structured way.

You look, and we’re in a number of positions now that are pretty unique. But none of it was planned. For me, it all started with curiosity and then the realization that it’s a complex world. You need to work with other people across disciplines, across sectors, across continents. And you add in great colleagues and incredible students, Baylor’s unique mission and you find yourselves in places where you can have an impact.

For many of the challenges you describe, Baylor’s home state of Texas serves as a lab to study up close. How does Baylor’s location serve your work?

Ryan McManamay:

This is a huge state. It’s second only to Alaska in size and so there is an immense amount of diversity in ecosystems—from high mountains to desert environments to tropical-like areas. There's so much to study. The natural ecosystem, the human infrastructure. The amount of work and money it takes to keep up our infrastructure in our state and the extreme climates that we have, to keep that infrastructure running is an amazing thing. And I think our colleagues are well-adapted to continue researching the issues that arise from that.

Thad Scott:

It’s incredibly interesting because we have, give or take, about 120 major public lakes in Texas. We're not going to get very many more anytime soon. They’re all manmade. Texas has an aging infrastructure. There are all sorts of extremely important challenges to be addressed and solved: our precipitation gradient from west to east, the encroachment of people, how rapidly the population is changing. If you look at the Texas Water Plan, our demand is going to outgrow our supply in the next 50 years. So, we've got to change the way we're using water. That comes down using science as a guide for making critical decisions about using water resources most effectively. Texas water issues also translate globally. We can take what we’re learning here at home and help improve human water security around the world.

Bryan Brooks:

And I think the key is that what we're doing at Baylor has, certainly international dimensions, but even the work that we're doing in our backyard matters to our family and our friends and our neighbors, we're learning a lot that actually can help us much more broadly. And when you factor in Baylor’s distinct mission—clean water is Biblical—it’s something that truly connects with us all. What we’re working on matters to rural, urban, poor, affluent—it’s universal and it’s meaningful to be able to address it with the outstanding people who are our colleagues and students.