RAPID: Impacts of Design and Operation Attributes of Mass-Gathering Civil Infrastructure Systems on Pathogen Transmission and Exposure

Engineering - This Rapid Response Research (RAPID) grant will support fundamental research to reveal how the design attributes and operation strategies will influence the transmission of and exposure to infectious pathogens within mass-gathering civil infrastructure systems. During the pandemic of 2019 novel coronavirus, the mass-gathering civil infrastructure systems, such as schools, airports, and public transit systems, can become hot spots for spreading the infectious disease. There remains a striking knowledge gap in understanding the impacts of infrastructure design and operation on the occurrence, distribution, transport, and viability of pathogens. It is imperative to address this knowledge gap. Results from this project will lead to bio-informed guidelines for managing critical civil infrastructure systems to prevent exposure of facility users to pathogenic microorganisms, and reduce risks of spreading infectious diseases, and thus alleviating burdens on healthcare systems and citizens. This project will provide much needed insights for infrastructure design reconfigurations and operation practices during the pandemic, in the recovery, and beyond to prevent further disease outbreaks and support healthy, resilient, and smart communities. As a result, this project will help promote public health, national security, and economic prosperity. In addition, this project will raise public science literacy and awareness of infectious diseases, and improve student education and training, as well as K-12 outreach and engagement activities.

The specific objective of this research is to parameterize relevant design attributes and operation strategies of infrastructure systems, and subsequently evaluate their impacts on pathogen transmission and exposure from spatiotemporal microbiome profiles. Three aims will be pursued: 1) identify and quantify the design attributes and operation strategies that may impact pathogen dynamics; 2) audit the types, abundance, and co-occurrence patterns, as well as spatiotemporal dynamics of microorganisms, particularly pathogens, associated with spatially and functionally distributed system components; and 3) characterize the impacts of design and operation on the transmission and exposure pathways of microorganisms in infrastructure systems. The spatial and functional interdependence of system components will be considered to parameterize design attributes based on building information modeling and syntactic analysis. The operation strategies will be modeled using integrated data sensing and simulation techniques. A model-informed sampling approach will be developed with molecular and metagenomics techniques to characterize spatiotemporal microbiome dynamics. The impacts of design and operation on microbial transmission and exposure pathways will be assessed using integrated source tracking and machine learning methods. At the nexus of infrastructure system engineering and environmental microbiology, this convergence research will provide unique insights into design attributes and operation practices impacting pathogen transmission and exposure in mass-gathering civil infrastructure systems.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.