AEESP Spotlight: Mid 2024.

This document is a spotlight column from the journal Environmental Engineering Science, highlighting selected articles from the December 2023 to March 2024 issues. One article discusses a faculty mentoring program developed by the Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors (AEESP), which pairs junior faculty with mentors to support their professional development. The article emphasizes the importance of factors such as university type, personality, research area, parental and marital status, and race/ethnicity in the mentor-mentee pairing process. Another article explores the potential of vertical hydroponic systems using effluents from anaerobic membrane bioreactors to grow lettuce in urban areas with limited land access. The study demonstrates that proper lighting and knowledge of nutrient concentration are crucial for efficient lettuce growth. A third article investigates the role of membrane thickness and porosity in reverse osmosis (RO) and nanofiltration (NF) processes for desalination and wastewater treatment. The study finds that membrane porosity, determined by pore size and thickness, affects sodium chloride removal and ion flux. Lastly, a study evaluates sampling strategies for SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater treatment plants, highlighting the effectiveness of composite sampling for capturing overall community conditions and grab sampling for identifying specific outbreak locations. The information presented in these articles can be valuable for researchers and practitioners in the field of environmental engineering and science. [Extracted from the article]