About

Caitlyn Butler is an Associate Professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in the Department of Microbiology. The page does not provide specific details about her research focus, background, or key contributions.

Research topics

• Environmental engineering
• Political Science
• Medicine
• Chromatography
• Chemistry
• Computer Science
• Biophysics
• Biology
• Organic chemistry
• Environmental science
• Chemical physics
• Chemical engineering
• Telecommunications
• Geology
• Materials science
• Nanotechnology
• Nursing
• Pathology
• Environmental planning
• Public relations
• Geography
• Engineering
• Business

Selected publications

• Decarbonizing wastewater treatment plants: leveraging the industrial benefits and energy savings of co-locating utility-scale hydrogen electrolyzers at wastewater treatment facilities

  IET conference proceedings. · 2025-03-01

  articleSenior author

  National Grid envisions the integration of utility-scale hydrogen electrolysis and municipal-sized wastewater treatment systems to maximize synergistic opportunities. Currently, the valuable oxygen by-product of water electrolysis is released into the atmosphere, while wastewater treatment systems require additional energy to introduce oxygen. Through our proposed Synergistic Hydrogen and Oxygen at Wastewater (SHOW) Platform, we aim to co-locate these processes. Oxygen generated by utility-scale electrolyzers is injected into the wastewater aeration system, enhancing water treatment efficiency. Simultaneously, the hydrogen by-product is blended into the natural gas pipeline, displacing methane, and reducing emissions. This paradigm shift in resource allocation offers substantial emissions reductions, lowers electrical demand for wastewater treatment, and creates a new revenue stream. By using electrolytic oxygen, we improve the operational, electrical, and carbon intensity impacts of wastewater treatment. Simultaneously, this innovative approach makes electrolytically produced green hydrogen more economically viable and attractive, delivering significant emission reductions. The SHOW Platform represents a unique commercial offering, showcasing the synergy between electrolysis and wastewater treatment while driving sustainability and cost-effectiveness.

  PublisherDOI

• Passive sampling to scale wastewater surveillance of infectious disease: Lessons learned from COVID-19

  UNC Libraries · 2025-04-18

  articleOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Wavelength-Specific Biofilm Control from Internally UV-Emitting Glass Surfaces

  Environmental Science & Technology · 2025-07-29 · 1 citations

  article

  This study introduces a novel wavelength-specific approach to biofilm inhibition using UV-emitting glass (UEG). Microorganisms rapidly form biofilms on wetted surfaces, posing significant operational and health risks. UEGs offer a consumable-free alternative to traditional antifouling coatings through bottom-up UV irradiance, enhancing both oxidative and direct photolytic inhibition mechanisms. We evaluated UEG effectiveness by comparing log reduction values (LRV) and biofilm structural differences across different wavelengths, while detailing electrical power consumption calculations for comparison with other electrically driven biofilm inhibition technologies. The 265 nm UEG achieved the highest biofilm inhibition performance with >3 LRV and >95% visible biofilm reduction during 8-day submersion at 1.01 ± 0.55 mW/cm2 power consumption. Notably, 365 and 310 nm UEGs achieved >0.4 and >1.9 LRV despite significantly lower germicidal benefits. The thickness of the established biofilm, however, was the same across all substrates. This research explores UEG’s unique characteristics and evaluates energy requirements and biofilm inhibition efficiency across UV spectra. The developed methods significantly impact innovative, low-energy UV-emitting surface technology, which reduces energy use and environmental impact compared to traditional UV sources. These findings are crucial for the marine, water treatment, and healthcare industries where biofouling and infection control are essential.

  PublisherDOI

• Modeling Daily Ice Cover in Northern Hemisphere Lakes With a Long Short‐Term Memory Neural Network

  Geophysical Research Letters · 2025-06-17 · 3 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract Quantifying lake ice loss is crucial for understanding the impact of climate change on lake ecosystems. In this study, we trained a deep learning model (Long‐Short Term Memory with Landsat observations, 1984–2012) to simulate Northern Hemisphere lake ice changes at a fine spatial scale from 1980 to 2022. The model achieved good performance overall during the test period (2013–2022), and the derived ice‐on and ice‐off matched well with two independent ice phenology data sets. Results reveal a 76.8% increase in intermittently ice‐covered lakes from the 1980s to the 2010s, alongside a 10.7‐day shorter ice duration and a 3.9 percentage‐points reduction in annual mean ice cover fractions. The model can track daily partial ice cover changes, providing a novel contribution to understanding shifts in lake ice cover with climate change. These findings can provide valuable insights for future limnology studies, such as improving estimates of greenhouse gas emissions from lakes.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• UV emitting glass: A promising strategy for biofilm inhibition on transparent surfaces

  Biofilm · 2024-02-27 · 15 citations

  articleOpen access

  Marine biofouling causes serious environmental problems and has adverse impacts on the maritime industry. Biofouling on windows and optical equipment reduces surface transparency, limiting their application for on-site monitoring or continuous measurement. This work illustrates that UV emitting glasses (UEGs) can prevent the establishment and growth of biofilm on the illuminated surfaces. Specifically, this paper describes how UEGs are enabled by innovatively modifying the surfaces of the glass with light scattering particles. Modification of glass surface with silica nanoparticles at a concentration 26.5 μg/cm2 resulted in over ten-fold increase in UV irradiance, while maintaining satisfactory visible and IR transparency metrics of over 99 %. The UEG reduced visible biological growth by 98 % and resulted in a decrease of 1.79 log in detected colony forming units when compared to the control during a 20 day submersion at Port Canaveral, Florida, United States. These findings serve as strong evidence that UV emitting glass should be explored as a promising approach for biofilm inhibition on transparent surfaces.

  PublisherDOI

• A Multi-Sensor Approach to Characterize Winter Water-Level Drawdown Patterns in Lakes

  Remote Sensing · 2024-03-08

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Artificial manipulation of lake water levels through practices like winter water-level drawdown (WD) is prevalent across many regions, but the spatiotemporal patterns are not well documented due to limited in situ monitoring. Multi-sensor satellite remote sensing provides an opportunity to map and analyze drawdown frequency and metrics (timing, magnitude, duration) at broad scales. This study developed a cloud computing framework to process time series of synthetic aperture radar (Sentinel 1-SAR) and optical sensor (Landsat 8, Sentinel 2) data to characterize WD in 166 lakes across Massachusetts, USA, during 2016–2021. Comparisons with in situ logger data showed that the Sentinel 1-derived surface water area captured relative water-level fluctuations indicative of WD. A machine learning approach classified lakes as WD versus non-WD based on seasonal water-level fluctuations derived from Sentinel 1-SAR data. The framework mapped WD lakes statewide, revealing prevalence throughout Massachusetts with interannual variability. Results showed WDs occurred in over 75% of lakes during the study period, with high interannual variability in the number of lakes conducting WD. Mean WD magnitude was highest in the wettest year (2018) but % lake area exposure did not show any association with precipitation and varied between 8% to 12% over the 5-year period. WD start date was later and duration was longer in wet years, indicating climate mediation of WD implementation driven by management decisions. The data and tools developed provide an objective information resource to evaluate ecological impacts and guide management of this prevalent but understudied phenomenon. Overall, the results and interactive web tool developed as part of this study provide new hydrologic intelligence to inform water management and policies related to WD practices.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Fundamentals of Biofilm Reactor Design and Operation

  Proceedings of the Water Environment Federation · 2024-10-01

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• MiDAS 5: Global diversity of bacteria and archaea in anaerobic digesters

  Nature Communications · 2024-06-25 · 79 citations

  articleOpen access

  Anaerobic digestion of organic waste into methane and carbon dioxide (biogas) is carried out by complex microbial communities. Here, we use full-length 16S rRNA gene sequencing of 285 full-scale anaerobic digesters (ADs) to expand our knowledge about diversity and function of the bacteria and archaea in ADs worldwide. The sequences are processed into full-length 16S rRNA amplicon sequence variants (FL-ASVs) and are used to expand the MiDAS 4 database for bacteria and archaea in wastewater treatment systems, creating MiDAS 5. The expansion of the MiDAS database increases the coverage for bacteria and archaea in ADs worldwide, leading to improved genus- and species-level classification. Using MiDAS 5, we carry out an amplicon-based, global-scale microbial community profiling of the sampled ADs using three common sets of primers targeting different regions of the 16S rRNA gene in bacteria and/or archaea. We reveal how environmental conditions and biogeography shape the AD microbiota. We also identify core and conditionally rare or abundant taxa, encompassing 692 genera and 1013 species. These represent 84-99% and 18-61% of the accumulated read abundance, respectively, across samples depending on the amplicon primers used. Finally, we examine the global diversity of functional groups with known importance for the anaerobic digestion process.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Water quality indicators influencing the formation and morphology of hydrostatically-formed photogranules

  Environmental Science Advances · 2024-01-01 · 7 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  Initial water quality parameters in hydrostatic photogranulation determine photogranule shape (spherical or disk-shaped), impacting their physical traits and wastewater treatment effectiveness.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Developing a Hydrological Modeling Framework for Lake Water Level Drawdown Management

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2023-01-01

  preprintOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• CAREER: Fundamental Studies of Cross-Kingdom Aggregate Biofilms for Energy-Efficient Wastewater Treatment

  NSF · $526k · 2015–2022

Frequent coauthors

• Robert Nerenberg

  University of Notre Dame

  10 shared

• Willy Verstraete

  Ghent University

  9 shared

• Peter Clauwaert

  Ghent University

  9 shared

• Stefan J. Green

  Rush University

  9 shared

• Ahmed S. Abouhend

  7 shared

• V. Srinivasan

  7 shared

• Chul Park

  7 shared

• Wenye Camilla Kuo-Dahab

  University of Massachusetts Amherst

  6 shared