People

Stephanie Loeb, Assistant Professor

Department of Civil Engineering, McGill University

Specialization in Environmental Engineering


Dr. Stephanie Loeb is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at McGill University. Prior to joining McGill, she was a post-doctoral fellow at Stanford where she studied the sunlight inactivation of human norovirus. She received her PhD from Yale University with a focus on the environmental applications of light-activated and fluorescent nanomaterials. She has a MASc from the University of Toronto in Civil Engineering and completed her bachelors degree in Physics and Nanoscience jointly between UofT and the National University of Singapore. Prof Loeb's research interests encompass materials science and environmental engineering, with particular expertise in the areas of nanotechnology, photonics, and environmental virology. Outside the lab, she likes traveling, swimming, skiing, listening to excessively long history podcasts, and reading science-fiction.


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Graduate Students

Saadia Wasim is a pursuing a PhD in environmental engineering, co-supervised by Prof. Loeb and Prof. Ghoshal. She is the recipient of a MEDA Award and a Grad Excellence Award. She was born and raised in UAE and completed her B.Sc. in Chemical Engineering (major) and Engineering Management (minor) at American University of Sharjah and M.Eng. (Thesis-based) in Chemical Engineering at McGill University. Her Ph.D. research project is based on designing novel nanomaterials for improving light-mediated chemical and pathogen inactivation. When not involved in research, she enjoys spending her time organizing, cooking, baking, and tutoring.

Yiding Wang is a PhD student in the Loeb Research Group. He received his master's degree in Environmental Health and Engineering at the Johns Hopkins University and bachelor degree in Civil Engineering at University of Missouri-Columbia. He enjoys biology and mathematics. Currently, he is studying mechanisms of photo-inactivation, especially for viruses. His undergraduate research focused on treating wastewater using anaerobic bioreactors, and his master's graduate research focused on non-target analysis for pharmaceuticals in wastewater. Yiding enjoys swimming and hiking during his leisure time.

Mahmudul Hasan Khan Neon is currently pursuing a PhD under the supervision of Prof. Stephanie Loeb, focusing on the development of self-healing photocatalytic materials for environmental remediation. Neon earned an M.Sc. from Bangladesh University of Engineering & Technology and a B.Eng. from the University of Malaya, in Chemical Engineering. He is currently on study leave from Dhaka University of Engineering & Technology (DUET), where he served as an Assistant Professor. Neon previously taught at the Military Institute of Science and Technology and contributed to a University Grants Commission, Bangladesh-funded project, emphasizing innovative environmental advancements. Neon favours hands-on approaches in most tasks despite his fascination with technology and has a secret talent for sketching aliens.

Greyson He is an Masters student in the Department of Civil Engineering at McGill University. He started working in the Loeb Group as a SURE program participant on Wastewater-Based Epidemiology for SARS-CoV-2 in summer of 2021 as an undergraduate student. Starting in Winter 2022, as part of a CIVE470 undergraduate research project, he developed a profound interest in improving nanomaterials-aided photocatalytic advance oxidation processes (AOPs). A recipient of the FRQNT masters training awards, he started his Masters research focusing on developing novel surface plasmonic enhanced nanocomposites. Native to Shanghai, he is a world traveler who can often be found jogging in the City of Montreal. 


Michelle Pelletier is a graduate student in the Department of Civil Engineering at McGill University. She worked at VIA Rail as a Sustainable Mobility and Corporate Social Responsibility intern from 2021 to 2023 during her undergraduate studies. Michelle started working in the Loeb Group during the last year of her Bachelor’s for her undergraduate research project on water quality in the Ungava and Hudson Bays. In Fall 2023, she joined the Lab as a Master’s student to rapidly detect pathogens in recreational waters using FEEM spectroscopy. In her spare time, she loves to rock climb and try new recipes.


Megan Ethier is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in the Department of Civil Engineering under the supervision of Dr. Loeb. Receiving the NSERC CGS M award, Megan is focusing on manipulating the structural defects of hexagonal boron nitride for the goal of PFAS photocatalytic degradation. She was born in Ottawa and completed a B.Sc. in Chemistry with a minor in economics at Saint Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, NS. Her undergraduate research project involved the photocatalytic remediation of PAHs using gold nanoparticle doped semiconductor composites. Megan’s free time often involves cooking, running, skiing, and enjoying the outdoors.

Undergraduate Researchers

Surya Nadarajah is undergraduate engineering student in the Department of Civil Engineering at McGill University. He joined in the Loeb Group as part of a CIVE470 undergraduate research project, working on improving the durability and performance of titanium dioxide photocatalysis. Born in Montreal Quebec, he finds spare time appreciating the nature he is protecting through his Nikon camera.


Edwin Murr is a fourth-year Civil Engineering student at McGill. Having been born and raised in Lebanon, he is fluent in French, English, and Arabic. Over the years, he has worked diligently to prepare himself to become an engineer committed to ethics and sustainability. Furthermore, through his relevant courses in hydrology, along with his internship in engineering consulting at WSP, he developed an interest in Water Management and Pollution Control.



Charlotte Anderson is an undergraduate student in the Department of Civil Engineering. She is working in the lab on her undergraduate research project involving the detection of pathogens in recreational waters, aiding in membrane filtration and E.Coli colony identification using agar plates of wastewater and local impacted recreational waters. Charlotte also enjoys cooking, swimming and being outdoors.

Lab Group Alumni

Student Alumni

Lawrence Chiang was an undergraduate student in the Department of Civil Engineering. They worked in the lab as a CIVE470 student on inactivation rates for MS2 using simulated sunlight. They have also worked on the wastewater SARS-CoV-2 surveillance project. 

Olivia Seamone completed her 470 undergraduate research project in the Loeb Lab. She worked on a project to formulate the optimal procedure for the growth of the phi6 virus and then determine the optimal light conditions to kill phi6. She has previous lab experience working on the project monitoring SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater systems in Quebec. 

Paul Glenn was a research assistant working on the wastewater SARS-CoV-2 surveillance project to provide estimates of active COVID cases in sites throughout Quebec. Paul worked primarily in nucleic acid extraction and filtration of wastewater samples. 

Alex Lang was a student research assistant working in the Loeb/Frigon COVID wastewater project. He worked on sample concentration, filtration, and DNA/RNA extraction for qPCR. His research interests include bioremediation, oncology, and biotechnological R&D. 

Angela Zhu was an undergraduate student in bioengineering. She was a SURE and NSERC URSA undergraduate researcher in the Loeb lab group where she worked on the design of a photocatalytic water treatment reactor using 3-D printing techniques and developed a protocol for the growth and inactivation of bacteriophage MS2. Her poster won the best student presentation award at the SURE end of summer research show case. 

Gabriel Coluni was an undergraduate student studying in Civil Engineering at McGill University. He worked in the lab as a SURE Summer research students and as part of a CIVE470 undergraduate research project. His research interests are related to the built and aquatic environment, with a specific interest in photoinactivation and detection of viral pathogens. He worked on a systematic review and meta-analysis of sunlight inactivation of viral pathogens.

Laura Herbert was an undergraduate student working on the the detection of SARS CoV-2 viral RNA in wastewater in the province of Quebec

Haley Janvrin was an undergraduate student working on the the detection of SARS CoV-2 viral RNA in wastewater in the province of Quebec

Researcher Alumni

Fernando Sanchez Quete was a research assistant working in the Loeb and Frigon research groups. He has a master of science in virology & immunology from Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique (INRS). He is known for his passion in understanding life dynamics through the biology of viruses. In the last five years, he has been studying both RNA and DNA viruses by using several approaches and techniques in cell and molecular biology. 

Carolina Perusquía Hernández was a research assistant in the lab's of Prof. Loeb and Prof. Frigon, working on the wastewater SARS-CoV-2 surveillance project. Her research interests are catalytic and enzymatic processes, specifially aiming to understand function-structure relationships that promote specificity and efficiency characteristic of enzymes. 

Şükriye Celikkol Aydin was a research assistant in the lab's of Prof. Loeb and Prof. Frigon, working on the wastewater SARS-CoV-2 surveillance project. She is an environmental engineer and a molecular biologist with a PhD in environmental sciences. She has investigated the microbial ecology of various samples including domestic and industrial wastewater, drinking water reservoirs, lake and marine sediments, biofuels and corroded metals using microscopy, immunoimmobilization and molecular biology tools. 

Betelhem (Betty) Kassa was a research assistant on the joint wastewater-based epidemiology of SARS-CoV2 project of Prof. Loeb and Prof. Frigon. After completing her BSc in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, she received a scholarship to do her MSc. at the Institut National de la Research Scientific (INRS). 

Xuan Wu was a research assistant working on the wastewater SARS-CoV-2 surveillance project, which provides additional information to McGill residence and helps with the early identification of possible outbreaks in the community. Xuan completed a master's in Civil Engineering at McGill where she studied anaerobic digestion of ozonated sludge. 

Ling Han was a research assistant working on the wastewater COVID project which detects SARS-CoV-2 and monitors the concentrations in wastewater at McGill Residences. Ling worked on daily sampling, RNA extraction, and RT-qPCR experiment. Ling has a master’s degree from the Bioresources Engineering Department at McGill where she studied a variety of concepts in environmental engineering including wastewater treatments, remediations, ecotoxicology, systems analysis, water management, and environmental policy.