Gouthami is a PhD student in the Environmental Science and Engineering Program at UNC-Chapel Hill. She previously received her MPH in Environmental Health and BS in Environmental Sciences at Emory University. Prior to the PhD, Gouthami worked as a laboratory coordinator for the WASH Benefits-Kenya study and as an environmental microbiologist at CDC’s Waterborne Disease Prevention Branch.
Her previous work focused on hurricane response efforts in Puerto Rico and US Virgin Islands, cholera outbreak response efforts in Zambia, and needs assessments for environmental microbiology laboratories in Sierra Leone, Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. Her current interests focus on improved enteric pathogen environmental sampling and detection methods, household water treatment technologies, and laboratory capacity-building in low-resource settings. Her PhD work will include multiplex pathogen detection data and environmental risk assessments from the Maputo Sanitation trial.