Important advances in environmental health science often begin with novel innovation. This year, the University of Washington Interdisciplinary Center for Exposures, Diseases, Genomics & Environment (EDGE) is helping researchers advance their innovative ideas by awarding five pilot grants totaling $173,000 to interdisciplinary teams exploring emerging challenges at the intersection of environment and health.
The EDGE pilot program supports projects that venture beyond investigators’ established areas of research. By providing early funding and the opportunity to generate preliminary data, these awards help lay the groundwork for larger future studies with the potential for real-world impact. This year’s projects span a remarkable range of approaches—from social media, AI and urban planning to transcriptomics, spectroscopy and a lab-grown model of the human intestine derived from human intestinal stem cells. These five projects reflect the breadth and creativity needed to tackle today’s most pressing environmental health issues. One project will also receive additional support for community engagement, reinforcing EDGE’s commitment to research that connects science with the communities it serves.
Meet the 2026 EDGE pilot awardees and learn how their innovative projects are advancing the future of environmental health research:
Integrating Mental Health into Urban Planning: Heat-Related Behavioral and Psychological Responses Across Zoning
Tzu-Hsin Karen Chen
UW Urban Design and Planning and Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences
Tzu-Hsin Karen Chen will use data from social media to examine how extreme heat affects people’s mental health and how city design can help reduce those impacts. Hot weather is linked to higher rates of depression, suicide, and violence. These effects may be driven by physical stress, poor sleep, and social isolation—problems that tend to worsen during heatwaves. As King County, WA plans to build 195,000 new affordable homes by 2044, it’s important to understand how neighborhood design can better protect residents from extreme heat. Features like shaded sidewalks and cooling centers may help, but are not systematically integrated into zoning regulations and building codes. In order to inform zoning policies, more information is needed on how people move during heatwaves. This project uses social media to fill that information gap, focusing on two key signals: helplessness—the feeling of being stuck or unable to cope—and mobility—the capacity to seek a more protective environment. Chen will analyze location-tagged posts from X (Twitter) and mobility data from Facebook during heatwaves in King County. An AI system will identify posts that show feelings of helplessness, while spatial and statistical analysis will examine how these feelings relate to neighborhood features and whether mobility helps reduce them. Findings will inform future planning decisions to improve heat resilience and promote better mental health. Chen also received a $10,000 supplement to support her work engaging with communities.
Airborne environmental exposures and gene expression in reproductive-aged men
Tristan Nicholson and Ashleigh Theberge
UW Department of Urology, Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences and Department of Chemistry
Tristan Nicholson and Ashleigh Theberge will examine how air pollution—including wildfire smoke—may affect male fertility. Male factors drive about half of infertility cases, but many of the causes are still not well understood. Recent studies suggest that exposure to polluted air may reduce sperm quality. To explore mechanisms of how this might happen, this study will use data from 18 healthy men in the Seattle area who took part in a 2025 study. Researchers previously collected detailed information about the indoor and outdoor air they were exposed to using home sensors and wearable devices. Participants also provided multiple semen and blood samples over time. In this project, researchers will analyze the blood samples to see how gene activity changed in response to different levels of air pollution. They are especially interested in genes related to inflammation and the immune system, which may play a role in reproductive health. By linking air pollution exposure to molecular changes, this study aims to better understand how environmental factors may affect male fertility. The findings will help guide future studies and could eventually inform clinical counseling, public health efforts, and policies to reduce harmful exposures.
Plastic Associated Toxic Exposures via Enteral Gavage Feeds in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit
Sheela Sathyanarayana and Rachel LaFontaine
UW Department of Pediatrics and Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, Seattle Children's Hospital
Newborn babies in neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) represent one of the most developmentally-vulnerable populations. Many of these infants rely on medical equipment made from plastic to survive, including feeding tubes used to provide milk or formula. These plastic devices may release tiny plastic particles called microplastics into the babies’ food. Research suggests that microplastics could impact important biological processes. Sheela Sathyanarayana and Rachel LaFontaine will study whether feeding systems used in NICUs add microplastics to breast milk and formula by comparing milk and formula before and after they pass through a typical feeding setup, using lab conditions that closely mimic real hospital practices. The study will focus on two key questions: 1. Does the amount and type of microplastics in milk and formula change after passing through a typical NICU feeding system? 2. Does the length of feeding time affect how much exposure occurs? To answer these questions, Sathyanarayana and LaFontaine will use advanced tools including pyrolysis gas chromatography-mass spectroscopy and infrared spectroscopy to measure the total amount and type of microplastics present in milk and formula. The goal of this work is to better understand how much microplastic exposure NICU babies may face. This information will help guide safer feeding practices, improve the design of medical devices and reduce potential risks for these highly vulnerable infants.
Assessing the Enterotoxicity of Benzalkonium Chlorides in an In Vitro Model of the Human Intestine
Libin Xu and Edward Kelly
UW Department of Medical Chemistry and Department of Pharmaceutics
Benzalkonium chlorides (BACs) are chemicals commonly added to disinfectants and cleaning supplies to kill germs. A previous study found that levels of BACs in human blood increased 174% during the COVID-19 pandemic compared with pre-COVID. Recently, Libin Xu and Edward Kelly found BACs in all human stool samples tested, suggesting that the intestine is an important site of exposure. To date, little is known about how BACs behave in the intestine—how they are absorbed and broken down or whether they accumulate and cause harm. In this project, Xu and Kelly will study these questions using a lab-grown model of the human intestine derived from human intestinal stem cells. They hypothesize that BACs can enter intestinal cells, build up inside them, and potentially damage the gut’s protective barrier. Their project has two main aims: 1. to understand how BACs enter, move through and are processed by intestinal cells after short-term exposure and 2. to examine how long-term exposure to low levels of BACs affects the gut barrier and normal cell functions. To do this, they will use advanced techniques including mass spectrometry analysis, fluorescence imaging, functional probes of barrier integrity, and RNAseq to measure molecular changes in cells in response to BAC exposure. This project is innovative because it uses a human-based lab model developed by Kelly’s lab instead of animal testing. Kelly’s model closely mimics real human intestinal function and can provide more relevant results while reducing the need for animal experiments.
Identifying mechanistic drivers of environmental antibiotic resistance dissemination from small-scale biodigesters using hybrid metagenomics and machine learning
Karen Levy and Caitlin Hemlock
UW Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences
Karen Levy and Caitlin Hemlock will study whether household biodigesters—systems that turn waste into energy and fertilizer through anaerobic digestion—may contribute to the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. While biodigesters are widely used as a sustainable sanitation solution, the digested effluent can contain bacteria with genes that make them resistant to antibiotics, particularly if the anaerobic digestion is not working properly. These harmful bacteria may be released into the environment, potentially exposing people and animals. Levy and Hemlock will analyze stored samples collected from effluent of biodigester-owning households in rural Nepal. Using hybrid metagenomic sequencing and bioinformatics, they will identify the bacteria in the effluent samples, the antibiotic resistance genes they carry and how easily those genes could spread between microbes. The team will also combine these data with information about households and their environments to estimate potential public health risks. The research will provide new insights into how antibiotic resistance may spread through environmental pathways that have received little attention. The findings will help identify risks to households and inform future efforts to make biodigesters safer.