Overview
Professor Summers’ traditional research focus has been on drinking water quality, treatment and modeling, with special interest in natural organic matter, disinfection by-products, trace organic contaminants and taste & odor as related to activated carbon adsorption, biological treatment, coagulation, filtration, membrane processes, disinfectant behavior and distribution systems. For the last 10 years he has researched water treatment technologies for low and middle income communities including ceramic water filters, slow sand filters and biochar. Most recently he has been evaluating the treatment of alternative water sources (stormwater, greywater, wastewater effluent and combined sewer overflow) with the use of coagulation, biofiltration and biochar / activated carbon adsorption.
In the last five years he has had collaborative research projects and publications with a wide range of CU colleagues including Professors Cook, Rosario-Ortiz, Rajagopalan, Corwin, Seidel, Linden, Bielefeldt, Kasprzyk and Livneh and external colleagues including professors Detlef Knappe (NC State) and Aaron Dotson (Univ. Alaska). He has served as the research advisor for eight postdoctoral researchers.
Projects
He was the director of the DeRISK Center (2014-2018) and the Center for Drinking Water Optimization (1998-2004) both funded by the USEPA and both with a focus on small drinking water systems. He has been the principal investigator (PI) or coPI of over 30 research projects (>$15M) sponsored by a wide range of agencies including EPA-ORD, EPA-OGWDW, Water Research Foundation, NSF, Bureau of Reclamation, NOAA, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and over 30 water utilities, state agencies and consulting firms (OH, CO, CA, AZ, KY, NY, IN, ND, NM, AL, RI, FL).