Erica is a 3rd-year PhD candidate in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Her research centers on environmental microbiome engineering, with a focus on developing robust biological systems to address contamination, infrastructure degradation, and environmental health challenges. Her work integrates microbial ecology, environmental biotechnology, and engineering design to improve the predictability and real-world performance of microbial applications. Through projects spanning contaminant remediation, infrastructure biofouling, occupational exposure reduction, and autonomous microbial detection, she investigates how microbial communities can be stabilized, monitored, and strategically deployed in complex environments. By bridging laboratory experimentation with applied environmental systems, her research advances scalable, data-driven frameworks for leveraging microbiological processes to protect ecosystems, infrastructure, and public health.
Contact Information
- Email Address: erica.babusci@duke.edu
- Websites:
Education
- B.S. Environmental Science and Biology, The Ohio State University, 2023
- M.S Environmental Engineering, Duke University, 2025
Research Interests
- Environmental biotechnology
- Microbial systems engineering
- Contaminant remediation and exposure mitigation
- Infrastructure resilience and environmental monitoring
- Applied microbial ecology