1 Charles N Haas Home Page - Haas Home Page

# Personal Web Page of Charles N Haas This is my personal web page. My official university web page is [here](https://drexel.edu/engineering/about/faculty-staff/H/haas-charles/). You can also review my full [[2 Curriculum Vitae|curriculum vitae]] and [[4 Publications|list of publications]] from this site. ![[Haas Photo May 2016.jpg|200]] ## Short Professional Bio I am the L.D. Betz Chair Professor of Environmental Engineering and Distinguished Professor at [Drexel University](https://drexel.edu/engineering/academics/departments/civil-architectural-environmental-engineering/), where I've been since 1991 (department head, 2004–2020). My work centers on a question with real public-health stakes: how do we rigorously assess and control the risk pathogenic microorganisms pose to human health? That question shaped [[3 Scholarly Interests#Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment|quantitative microbial risk assessment]] (QMRA), a field I helped found, with applications spanning water and wastewater treatment, food safety, indoor air quality, and occupational exposure. I hold a BS and MS from the [Illinois Institute of Technology](https://www.iit.edu/) and a PhD from the [University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign](https://cee.illinois.edu/), and previously held faculty positions at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and IIT. Broader interests include the [[3 Scholarly Interests#Kinetics and Design of Disinfection Processes|kinetics and design of disinfection processes]], [[3 Scholarly Interests#Wastewater Reuse|wastewater reuse]], control of [[3 Scholarly Interests#Opportunistic Pathogens|opportunistic pathogens]] in engineered water systems, and modeling of environmental processes generally. I also maintain a page tracking [[7 Waterborne Outbreaks|notable waterborne disease outbreaks]], a [[5 Teaching|teaching]] page listing the courses I've taught, and a [[6 Media Mentions|media mentions]] page of press coverage and interviews. >[!note] Career Highlights > - Co-author of the foundational textbook *Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment* (1999; 2nd ed. 2014), which helped establish QMRA as a field > - Elected to the **National Academy of Engineering** (2021) > - Recipient of the **Athalie Richardson Irvine Clarke Prize** — the water sector's top individual honor — from the National Water Research Institute (2017) > - Distinguished Fellow, International Water Association (2020) > - L.D. Betz Chair Professor at Drexel since 1991; 275+ peer-reviewed publications over a career spanning five decades ## Significant Honors - Elected to [National Academy of Engineering](https://www.nae.edu/248754/Dr-Charles-N-Haas) (2021) - [Distinguished Fellow of the International Water Association](https://iwa-network.org/news/iwa-announces-2020-fellows-and-distinguished-fellows/) (2020) - Recipient of the [Athalie Richardson Irvine Clarke Prize](https://www.nwri-usa.org/clarke-prize) for Outstanding Achievement in Water Science and Technology from the National Water Research Institute (2017) - American Water Works Association - Recipient of the [AP Black Research Award](https://www.awwa.org/award/a-p-black-award/) (2018) - Recipient of the [Dr. John L. Leal Award](https://www.awwa.org/award/dr-john-leal-award/) (2017) - [Board Certified Environmental Engineering Member by Eminence](https://www.aaees.org/eminence), American Academy of Environmental Engineers and Scientists - Fellow of the following organizations: - [American Association for the Advancement of Science](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fellow_of_the_American_Association_for_the_Advancement_of_Science) - [Society for Risk Analysis](https://www.sra.org/about-sra/awards/fellows-of-the-society/) (2002) - [American Society of Civil Engineers](https://www.asce.org/membership/join/fellow) - [American Academy of Microbiology](https://asm.org/academy/academy) - [Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors](https://aeesp.org/awards/fellows) ## Major Current Professional Service - President-Elect [American Academy of Environmental Engineers and Scientists](https://www.aaees.org/) - Area Editor, [_Risk Analysis_](https://www.sra.org/journal/) - Member of multiple advisory panels for the [National Water Research Institute](https://www.nwri-usa.org/) - Commissioner, [Engineering Accreditation Commission of ABET](https://www.abet.org/about-abet/governance/accreditation-commissions-2-2/), and serve as program evaluator (environmental engineering and civil engineering) See [[2 Curriculum Vitae|curriculum vitae]] for a full history of professional activities, editorial boards, advisory panels, and service. ## Publications See the full [[4 Publications|list of publications and presentations]] on this site, or: [Google Scholar Profile](https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=sr2iKIsAAAAJ&hl=en&authuser=1) [Pubmed](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=Charles+n.+haas&sort=date) ## Contact Information - [Email](mailto:[email protected]) - [ORCID](https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9255-9930) - [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/chuckhaas/) - [Mastodon](https://mastodon.social/@ProfCharlesHaas) - [BlueSky](https://bsky.app/profile/chuckhaas.bsky.social) - [X](https://x.com/ProfCharlesHaas) ## Personal Blog I also maintain a [personal blog](https://chaasblog.wordpress.com/) where I occasionally write about topics that interest me. ## Personal Information My path into environmental engineering was, by my own account, a series of fortunate accidents. I grew up in the Bronx and later Queens; neither of my parents attended college, but I got an early nudge toward science from my cousin, [Murray Jarvik](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_Jarvik), a biomedical researcher who helped develop the nicotine patch. Choosing a scholarship at a [college-prep school ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhodes_Preparatory_School)over a spot at Bronx High School of Science was one early "accident"; majoring in biology at the Illinois Institute of Technology while quietly nursing a parallel interest in mathematics was another. What actually set my direction was a junior-year elective in ecology, taken amid the environmental movement of the early 1970s — it gave me a way to point my mathematical instincts at real environmental systems, and I never really looked back. I've come to think of [Louis Pasteur's observation](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Louis_Pasteur) that "chance favors only the prepared mind" as something close to a personal motto — helped along by the fact that Pasteur and I happen to share a December 27th birthday. Nearly everyone who ends up in a field like environmental engineering or risk analysis comes from elsewhere; the trick has always been staying prepared enough to recognize the opportunity when it shows up. Except for my years in graduate school and on the faculty at Rensselaer, I've always been a city person at heart, and for more than thirty years now, Center City Philadelphia has been home. ## Colophon >In publishing, a **colophon** ([/ˈkɒləfən, -fɒn/](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA/English "Help:IPA/English"))[[1]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colophon_(publishing)#cite_note-1) is a brief statement containing information about the publication of a book such as an "imprint" (the place of publication, the publisher, and the date of publication). This website is constructed using the [Obsidian.md](https://obsidian.md/) platform, which enables the "local-first" writing using Markdown, and publication as a series of web pages. After a lot of thought, I decided I did not want to be vulnerable to the vagaries of any commercial publisher or any non-open-source system, and therefore decided to use this. A January 2025 posting on "[Be A Property Owner And Not A Renter On The Internet](https://den.dev/blog/be-a-property-owner-not-a-renter-on-the-internet/)" has been highly influential in my thinking. After some research, I was also influenced by coming across a set of web pages maintained by [another academic](https://yaminapressler.com/Website/about+me/about) using this same approach. In completing the initial buildout of this site, Claude Code (Anthropic) was very useful for development, coding, and translating materials from other formats into compatible [Markdown](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown) files.