Lutgarde Raskin, an environmental engineer whose research has transformed how the field understands and manages microbial communities in water systems, was recently appointed the Goizueta Foundation Professor of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, effective July 1.
She is a member of the Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering at the Yale School of Engineering & Applied Science.
Raskin joined the Yale faculty in 2026, arriving from the University of Michigan, where she was the Vernon L. Snoeyink Distinguished University Professor of Environmental Engineering and the Altarum/ERIM Russell O'Neal Professor of Engineering. Prior to joining Michigan in 2005, she spent 12 years as a faculty member at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Raskin is globally recognized for introducing molecular biology tools to environmental engineering, work that helped establish environmental biotechnology as a core sub-discipline within the field. In the early 1990s, she pioneered the application of biomolecular techniques to characterize and enhance microbial communities in engineered biological systems, enabling researchers to understand previously intractable problems in water treatment processes. Virtually every environmental engineering program now employs the molecular microbial ecology methods she helped develop.
Her research program focuses on understanding and improving the microbiome of the engineered water cycle to advance human and environmental health through sustainable design. Her research group studies drinking water treatment and distribution systems, including biofiltration, disinfection, and building plumbing, as well as technologies for recovering water, energy, and useful chemicals from waste streams. Current areas of focus include managing beneficial microorganisms while controlling opportunistic pathogens in drinking water systems and developing anaerobic biotechnologies - including approaches inspired by rumen biomimicry - to convert organic waste into products such as renewable natural gas and medium-chain carboxylic acids. This work has helped shift the drinking water sector toward accepting biological treatment strategies and the wastewater and waste treatment sectors toward embracing anaerobic biotechnologies as viable alternatives to conventional approaches.
Raskin was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Engineering in 2021 for her application of genetic tools to improve anaerobic biological water treatment. She holds an Honorary Doctorate from KU Leuven, Belgium (2025), and has received the American Society of Civil Engineers Simon W. Freese Environmental Engineering Award (2023), the International Water Association Microbial Ecology and Water Engineering Specialist Group Ardern-Lockett Award (2019), the Civil and Environmental Engineering Distinguished Alumna Award from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2019), the International Society for Microbial Ecology-International Water Association BioCluster Award (2016), the Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors (AEESP) Frontier Award in Research (2007), the American Society of Civil Engineers Walter L. Huber Civil Engineering Research Prize (2006), and the Water Research Foundation Paul L. Busch Award (2002). She was the 2018-19 AEESP Distinguished Lecturer and is an elected Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology, the International Water Association, the Water Environment Federation, and AEESP. She has authored or co-authored approximately 190 journal papers and 485 conference papers or abstracts, with roughly 21,500 citations, and has delivered approximately 150 invited lectures. She serves as an associate editor for the journal Environmental Science & Technology and on the editorial or advisory boards of five other journals, and served on the AEESP's board of directors from 2016 to 2019.
Raskin's approach to teaching and mentoring is grounded in the belief that environmental engineering education must prepare students to address complex, interdisciplinary challenges through scientific rigor, creative problem-solving, and collaborative leadership. She has developed and taught undergraduate and graduate courses core to the environmental engineering curriculum, emphasizing hands-on learning through laboratory experiences and research paper analyses. Over her career, she has advised 22 postdoctoral researchers, 32 Ph.D. students, approximately 90 master's students, and 80 undergraduate students. She received the University of Michigan Distinguished Graduate Mentor Award in 2017.
At Yale, Raskin is contributing to research and teaching initiatives focused on sustainable water systems and interdisciplinary approaches to environmental challenges, strengthening Yale Engineering's efforts in environmental and energy systems research.
Raskin earned her B.S. and M.S. in bioscience engineering (environmental biotechnology) and her B.S. and M.S. in economics from KU Leuven, Belgium, and her Ph.D. in environmental engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
