Jade Johnson

Jade received her B.S. degree in Chemistry with minors in sustainability and math at San Diego State University. There she is now working on her M.S. in Environmental Health Sciences. She is an enrolled member of Navajo Nation and grew up in Grand Canyon Village, AZ before moving to Bakersfield, CA in grade school. Jade grew passionate about water quality after completing University of Montana’s National Science Foundation summer research experience analyzing samples from water wells near abandoned uranium mines on Navajo Nation - where her family is from. When she found over half of the private wells tested had arsenic levels exceeding EPA limits, she stopped taking water for granted and pursued research projects in Dr. Hoh’s Environmental Health laboratory at SDSU. Jade is an active scholar of the CA - Native American Research Center for Health program (now called the Indian Health Council Student Development Program). Previously she was a NIH/NIGMS Maximizing Access to Research Careers fellow and Elymash Yuuchaap Indigenous Scholars and Leaders mentor.

Her current research uses a non-targeted approach to provide an unprecedented evaluation of the treatment efficiency in both aerobic and anaerobic membrane bioreactors for removing emerging contaminants from municipal wastewater. Controlling for emerging contaminants in wastewater effluents is a critical environmental health challenge to overcome. Emerging contaminants are usually not regulated and are understudied. These include known toxic compounds such as persistent organic pollutants, residuals from pharmaceuticals, personal care products, and more. Aerobic and anaerobic membrane bioreactors are two types of decentralized wastewater treatment technologies, which have demonstrated promise as a sustainable wastewater treatment alternative with minimized energy and chemical consumption, and a potential water reuse technology. In Jade’s future, she wants to work in a position where she can address the growing water scarcity challenge in the Southwest US, especially for Navajo Nation.