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Despite the centralization of water treatment and the advancement of treatment technologies, drinking water-associated illnesses remain a serious and growing threat to public health, accounting for an estimated 1.1 million infections in the U.S. annually. While enteric pathogens (e.g., Giardia spp., Cryptosporidium spp.) continue to drive overall rates of waterborne disease, infections from opportunistic pathogens cause the majority of hospitalizations and deaths linked to drinking water in the U.S. Drinking water opportunistic pathogens occur naturally in the environment and are particularly hazardous for people with certain risk factors, including people who are older or that have weakened immune systems. Efforts to prevent opportunistic pathogen infections have been hindered by an absence of standardized quantification methods and an incomplete understanding of the factors that influence their occurrence. Further, the lack of rapid microbial monitoring methods in drinking water limits the ability of water and health professionals to quickly detect contamination or failure events and assess potential risks. My research utilizes tools from engineering and microbiology to investigate ways to improve drinking water quality and lessen the burden of waterborne disease. During my Ph.D. at the University of Michigan, I employed cultivation-dependent and -independent methods to study opportunistic pathogens in full-scale drinking water systems, finding that distribution and building plumbing systems can substantially influence opportunistic pathogen occurrence at the tap. I further investigated the use of rapid microbial monitoring for drinking water disinfection system performance assessment. My current postdoctoral research at the University of Texas at Austin focuses on the occurrence of opportunistic pathogens in drinking water systems across the U.S. and the role of microbial interactions in promoting opportunistic pathogen persistence and infectivity. My research program at the University of Iowa will seek to reduce the burden of waterborne disease in the built environment through on-tap technologies, microbiome-informed control strategies, and a focus on the impacts of climate change and extreme weather.