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Peter J. Vikesland

Pryor Professor of Engineering
Professional Registration : EIT (Iowa)

Areas of Interest

Nanomaterials in the environment, Improved sensors for drinking water treatment.

Vikesland Research Group

  • B.A. Grinnell College, Chemistry, 1993
  • M.S. The University of Iowa, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 1995
  • Ph.D. The University of Iowa, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 1998

  • American Water Works Association Abel Wolman Doctoral Fellowship (1996-1998)
  • American Chemical Society Division of Environmental Chemistry Graduate Student Paper Award (1999)
  • Honorable Mention Dissertation Award from AEESP (1999)
  • First Place American Water Works Association (AWWA) Dissertation Award (2000)
  • National Science Foundation CAREER Award (2004-2009)
  • Virginia Tech College of Engineering Dean’s Award for Outstanding Assistant Professor (2004)
  • Virginia Tech College of Engineering Faculty Fellow (2006-2009)
  • University of Iowa Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Richard L. Valentine Distinguished Lecturer (2012)
  • UPS Foundation Visiting Associate Professor, Stanford University Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (2012)
  • Elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (2016)
  • Virginia Tech College of Engineering Dean’s Award for Excellence in Research (2017)
  • Gastprofessor (Visiting Professor), ETH Zurich (2017)
  • Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors (AEESP) Walter J. Weber Frontier in Research Award (2018)
  • Elected Fellow of the Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors (AEESP) (2022)
  • Yale University Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering John Henske Distinguished Lecture in Chemical Engineering (2022)
  • Virginia Tech College of Engineering Dean’s Fellow (member: 2023-2024; co-lead: 2024-2025)

  • CEE 3104: Introduction to Environmental Engineering
  • CEE 4114: Fundamentals of Public Health Engineering
  • CEE 5104: Environmental Chemistry

  • "Quantification of the pH of Aerosol Droplets via Nanoprobe Based Sensing", PI, awarded by the National Science Foundation.
  • "NNCI: Virginia Tech National Center for Earth and Environmental Nanotechnology Infrastructure (NanoEarth)", co-PI, awarded by the National Science Foundation.
  • "Frameworks: Developing CyberInfrastructure for Waterborne Antibiotic Resistance Risk Surveillance (CI4-WARS)", co-PI, awarded by the National Science Foundation.
  • "RAPID: Development and Testing of Low-Cost Sensor Platforms for SARS-CoV-2 in Aerosols", PI, awarded by the National Science Foundation.
  • "Personal, Real-time Sensor for SARS-CoV-2 in the Indoor Environment", co-PI, awarded by Wellcome Leap.
  • RISE-IoT: Resilient Intelligent Sensing & Edge IoT Technologies, co-PI, awarded by the Virginia Tech College of Engineering.
  • Bioaerosol Risk Assessment Intervention Engineering (BRAVE), co-PI, awarded by the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H).

  • Longest, A.K.; Srivastava, S.; Mazzola., F.A.; Smeltz, R.E.; Parks, J.L.; Klein, L.K.; Duggal, N.K.; Vikesland, P.J.; and Marr, L.C. (2026). “Influence of carbon dioxide and pH on influenza virus in sessile saliva droplets”, Environmental Science and Technology, (https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.5c12672).
  • Maile-Moskowitz, A.; Brown, C.L.; Rumi, M.A.; Moumi, N.A.; Majeed, H.; Finkielstein, C.V.; Ceci, A.; Gonzlaez, R.; Xia, K.; McDaniel, L.; Baffoe-Bonnie, A.; Rao, J.; Zhang, L.; Pruden, A.; and Vikesland, P.J. (2025) “Relating antimicrobial use to wastewater resistance gene patterns via metagenomic analysis of two neighboring treatment plants circa the COVID-19 pandemic”, njp Antimicrobials and Resistance, Vol. 3, 82. (https://doi.org/10.1038/s44259-025-00153-9).
  • Gupta, S.; Wu, X.; Pruden, A.; Zhang, L.; and Vikesland, P.J. (2024). “Global-scale metagenomic analysis reveals sewage resistomes are more sensitive to socioeconomic status than human fecal resistomes.” Nature Water. Vol. 2, pp. 975-987. (https://doi.org/10.1038/s44221-024-00310-w).
  • Wang, W.; Srivastava, S.; Garg, A.; Chuan, X.; Hawks, S.; Pan, J.; Duggal, N.; Isaacman-VanWertz, G.; Zhou, W.; Marr, L.; and Vikesland, P.J. (2024). “Digital SERS-LFT dipstick: ultra-sensitive, rapid virus quantification in environmental dust.” Environmental Science and Technology, Vol. 58, pp. 4926–4936 (https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.3c10311).
  • Kang, S.; Choi, P.; Maile-Moskowitz, A.; Brown, C.; Gonzalez, R.; Pruden, A.; and Vikesland, P.J. (2024). “Highly multiplexed reverse-transcription loop-mediated isothermal amplification and nanopore sequencing (LAMPore) for wastewater-based surveillance.” ACS ES&T Water, Vol. 4, pp. 1629–1636 (https://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acsestwater.3c00690).
  • Kang, S.; Rahman, A.; McGinnis, S.; and Vikesland, P.J. (2024). “Toward environmentally favorable nano-sensing by production of reusable gold nanoparticles from gold nano-waste: Life cycle and nanocircular economy implications.” Environmental Science: Nano. Vol. 11, pp. 1499-1507. (https://dx.doi.org/10.1039/D3EN00505D).
  • Wang, W. and Vikesland, P.J. (2023). “SERS-active printable hydrogel for 3D cell culture and imaging.” Analytical Chemistry. Vol. 95, pp. 18055-18064. (https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.analchem.3c02641).
  • Wang, W. and Vikesland, P.J. (2023). “Metabolite-mediated bacterial antibiotic resistance revealed by surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy.” Environmental Science and Technology, Vol. 57, pp. 13375–13383. (https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.3c04001).
  • Wei, W.; Kang, S.; Zhou, W.; and Vikesland, P.J. (2023). “Environmental routes of virus transmission and the application of nanomaterial-based sensors for virus detection” ES:Nano. Vol 10, pp. 393-423. (https://doi.org/10.1039/D2EN00600F).
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