William Mitch

About

William Mitch is a Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford University. He received his B.A. in Anthropology (Archaeology) from Harvard University in 1993, during which he excavated at Mayan sites in Belize and surveyed sites dating from 2,000 B.C. in Louisiana. He later transitioned to civil and environmental engineering, earning an M.S. degree from UC Berkeley in 1996 and a Ph.D. from the same institution in 2003. Mitch worked in environmental consulting for three years and obtained his P.E. license in Civil Engineering in California. After completing his doctoral studies, he served as an assistant professor at Yale University, where his dissertation received the AEESP Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award in 2004, and he was a faculty advisor for the Yale Student Chapter of Engineers without Borders. In 2007, he was awarded an NSF CAREER Award. Mitch joined Stanford University as an associate professor in 2013. His research employs a fundamental understanding of organic chemical reaction pathways to explore links between public health, engineering, and sustainability. His current research topics include understanding the formation of toxic byproducts in water disinfection processes, studying abiotic chemical pathways involved in oceanic carbon flux, designing less persistent chemicals to address environmental pollution, engineering wastewater recycling processes to minimize harmful byproducts, and evaluating the formation and destruction of…

Research topics

• Organic chemistry
• Chemistry
• Environmental science
• Environmental chemistry
• Environmental engineering
• Materials science
• Biology
• Biochemistry
• Ecology
• Toxicology

Selected publications

• Organic wastewater treatment by a single-atom catalyst and electrolytically produced H2O2

  Nature Sustainability · 2020 · 667 citations

  DOI

• High-molecular-weight by-products of chlorine disinfection

  Nature Water · 2023 · 192 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  DOI

• Assessing Additivity of Cytotoxicity Associated with Disinfection Byproducts in Potable Reuse and Conventional Drinking Waters

  Environmental Science & Technology · 2020 · 177 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  values to estimate the DBP-associated cytotoxicity of disinfected waters. This approach assumed that cytotoxicity was additive rather than synergistic or antagonistic. In this study, we evaluated whether this assumption was valid for mixtures containing DBPs at the concentration ratios measured in authentic disinfected waters. We examined the CHO cell cytotoxicity of defined DBP mixtures based on the concentrations of 43 regulated and unregulated DBPs measured in eight drinking and potable reuse…

  DOI

• Control of Aromatic Disinfection Byproducts in Potable Reuse Water by the UV₂₂₂/H₂O₂ vs UV₂₅₄/H₂O₂ Advanced Oxidation Processes

  Environmental Science & Technology · 2024-08-22 · 25 citations

  articleSenior authorCorresponding

  Research has demonstrated the difficulty associated with degrading the conventional 1–2 carbon aliphatic halogenated byproducts of disinfectant reactions with organic matter [disinfection byproducts (DBPs)] within advanced oxidation process (AOP) units in potable reuse trains, but the efficacy of AOP units for treating the emerging classes of halogenated aromatic DBPs is unclear. We herein demonstrate more effective removal of 28 halogenated aromatic DBPs in the UV/H2O2 AOP at 222 nm (UV222) tha…

  PublisherDOI

• Regulated 1–2 Carbon Disinfection Byproducts do not Correlate with Cytotoxicity with Increasing Disinfectant Contact Time During Chlorination, Chlorination Followed by Chloramination or Granular Activated Carbon Followed by Chlorination

  Environmental Science & Technology · 2024-11-01 · 12 citations

  articleSenior authorCorresponding

  Regulations typically use four trihalomethanes (THM4) and five haloacetic acids (HAA5) as metrics of consumer exposure to disinfection byproducts (DBPs) and their chronic health risks. Their use as exposure metrics assumes that their concentrations correlate with DBP-associated toxicity. For a chlorine-disinfected surface water, this study demonstrates that increasing chlorine contact time from 1 to 7 days was associated with a 62-76% increase in THM4 and HAA5 but a 40-47% decrease in total cyto…

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• CAREER: Use of Black Carbon for the In-Situ, Abiotic Destruction of Sediment-Associated Persistent Organic Pollutants with Sulfides: A Combined Research and Educational Plan

  NSF · $400k · 2008–2014

• Generation of food-based chlorination disinfection byproducts (F-DBPs) during food processing

  NSF · $330k · 2020–2023

• Elucidating a novel photodegradation pathway: impact of halides on the photodestruction of organic contaminants in estuarine and marine systems

  NSF · $313k · 2011–2013

Frequent coauthors

• Teng Zeng

  Syracuse University

  44 shared

• Aleksandra Szczuka

  University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

  43 shared

• Michael J. Plewa

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  25 shared

• Yi-Hsueh Chuang

  National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University

  24 shared

• Daniel L. McCurry

  University of Southern California

  21 shared

• Joseph J. Pignatello

  Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station

  21 shared

• Stuart W. Krasner

  20 shared

• Paul Westerhoff

  Arizona State University

  17 shared

Education

• Ph.D., Civil and Environmental Engineering

  Stanford University

  1990

• M.S., Civil and Environmental Engineering

  Stanford University

  1986

• B.S., Civil Engineering

  Stanford University

  1982

Awards & honors

• AEESP Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award (2004)
• NSF CAREER Award (2007)

Similar researchers at Stanford University

• Mark Z. Jacobsonh-133
• Peter K. Kitanidish-73
• Stephen Monismithh-71