Katie Tam '21 presents her certificate project, "The Secrets in Our Sewage," during the Program in Journalism's third annual Senior Colloquium.
As the Covid-19 pandemic ravaged the country, and testing shortages became common, a new method of tracking community spread of the coronavirus emerged: analyzing sewage. During the summer of 2020, I embarked on a (virtual) exploration of what else was in our sewage, and what scientists are starting to find out about our health using our waste. It turns out, there is a lot: From nutritional biomarkers to the microbiome, I spoke to researchers in the field of wastewater-based epidemiology leading a sewage science revolution—and as always in science, working out the problems along the way.
