Sonia Grego

Associate Research Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

I am the founding director of the Duke Smart Toilet Lab, dedicated to the opportunities that data-rich human excreta offer to improve individual and public health. The objective  is to empower individuals and groups in communal living with health information for early warning of disease, health and wellness and management of chronic diseases through wastewater analysis, without any changes of daily habits. I am passionate about the opportunities that advanced sanitation technologies offer to improve global health and to provide a paradigm shift in health screening both for individuals and for communities.

As a major project of my research portfolio over the past 5 years, I have led the field testing of 10+ onsite sanitation technology prototypes from multiple organizations in international settings. I have managed yearlong deployments of sophisticated chemo-mechanical systems with electronic monitoring connected to wastewater pipes of buildings, ensuring no disruption of service to users while evaluating the treatment process performance.

Appointments and Affiliations

  • Associate Research Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Contact Information

Education

  • M.S. Università di Pisa (Italy), 1995
  • Ph.D. University of Copenhagen (Denmark), 1999

In the News

Representative Publications

  • Rosario, Praveen, Thamayanthi Seenivasan, Ramya Viswash, Sudha Ramalingam, Viswa Barani, Claire M. Welling, and Sonia Grego. “Impact of heat-treatment on wastewater analytical parameters.” Water Science and Technology : A Journal of the International Association on Water Pollution Research 88, no. 11 (December 2023): 2931–39. https://doi.org/10.2166/wst.2023.359.
  • Subramani, P., M. Basil, P. Rosario, D. R. Jalaja, V. Choudhary, J. Renganathan, L. Philip, et al. “Water recycling public toilets based on onsite electrochemical wastewater treatment.” Environmental Science: Water Research and Technology 10, no. 1 (November 13, 2023): 157–67. https://doi.org/10.1039/d3ew00454f.
  • Zhou, J., J. McNabb, N. Decapite, J. R. Ruiz, D. A. Fisher, S. Grego, and K. Chakrabarty. “Stool Image Analysis for Digital Health Monitoring By Smart Toilets.” IEEE Internet of Things Journal 10, no. 5 (March 1, 2023): 3720–34. https://doi.org/10.1109/JIOT.2022.3158886.
  • Kachoria, Prateek, Sarani Sasidaran, Claire M. Welling, Praveen Rosario, Jin Zhou, Krishnendu Chakrabarty, Harald Gründl, Lotte Kristoferitsch, and Sonia Grego. “Sensor-based evaluation of a Urine Trap toilet in a shared bathroom.” The Science of the Total Environment 857, no. Pt 1 (January 2023): 159178. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.159178.
  • Welling, Claire M., David R. Singleton, Steven B. Haase, Christian H. Browning, Brian R. Stoner, Claudia K. Gunsch, and Sonia Grego. “Predictive values of time-dense SARS-CoV-2 wastewater analysis in university campus buildings.” The Science of the Total Environment 835 (August 2022): 155401. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.155401.