Joshua A. Steele, Ph.D.
Southern California Coastal Water Research Project
Joshua Steele, Ph.D., is a senior scientist in the department of microbiology at the Southern California Coastal Water Research Project (SCCWRP), specializing in environmental microbiology.
Steele received his Ph.D. in biology focusing on biological oceanography from the University of Southern California. Subsequently, he was a postdoctoral scholar in geomicrobiology at the California Institute of Technology. He is an associate editor at Frontiers in Microbiology and chair of the Wastewater Based Epidemiology Committee of the California Water Quality Monitoring Council.
His research focuses on developing methods to identify and track human-associated bacteria and viruses and identify their sources in stormwater and coastal water, developing and standardizing methods for wastewater based epidemiology of pathogens (including SARS-CoV-2), tracking and naturally occurring bacteria in coastal natural and built environments, applying molecular techniques to track antibiotic resistance genes in wastewater and the environment and using bioinformatics tools to link eDNA from natural populations to ecosystem health.
Steele received his Ph.D. in biology focusing on biological oceanography from the University of Southern California. Subsequently, he was a postdoctoral scholar in geomicrobiology at the California Institute of Technology. He is an associate editor at Frontiers in Microbiology and chair of the Wastewater Based Epidemiology Committee of the California Water Quality Monitoring Council.
His research focuses on developing methods to identify and track human-associated bacteria and viruses and identify their sources in stormwater and coastal water, developing and standardizing methods for wastewater based epidemiology of pathogens (including SARS-CoV-2), tracking and naturally occurring bacteria in coastal natural and built environments, applying molecular techniques to track antibiotic resistance genes in wastewater and the environment and using bioinformatics tools to link eDNA from natural populations to ecosystem health.