Daniel Burgard
Professor, Chemistry
Dan is a researcher and teacher whose interests lie in environmental analyses and monitoring of air and water. Projects with Puget Sound Students initially focused on the remote sensing of mobile source gaseous emissions and now his work involves the analysis of municipal wastewater to quantify trace levels of pharmaceuticals and illicit drugs. His work on wastewater-based epidemiology has been published in scientific peer-reviewed articles as well as covered in the popular media such as Wired, the Associate Press, NPR Market Place and Discovery Channel Daily Planet. Dan teaches analytical, instrumental, and environmental chemistry courses at Puget Sound.
Dan completed his undergraduate degree at Colorado College and then taught at a Denver area high school before returning to do graduate work at the University of Denver under the direction of Donald Stedman. Dan joined the Chemistry Department at Puget Sound in 2006.
- Curriculum Vitae (PDF)
Our Research In the News
- Wired: One Way to Potentially Track Covid-19? Sewage Surveillance (7 April 2020)
- Associate Press: Gee Whiz: Testing of Sewage Confirms Rise in Marijuana Use (20 June 2019)
- KING5: Puget Sound has 'highest cannabis use per capita' worldwide, wastewater study says (18 June 2019)
- Global News "Statistics Canada: Sewer water shows cannabis use" (4 Dec 2018)
- NPR "Canada To Measure Marijuana Use By Testing Sewage" (13 April 2018)
- Science "The scientific swerve: Changing your research focus" (5 October 2017)
- Popular Science (5 July 2017)
- Motherboard-VICE (23 Jan 2017)
- NPR MarketPlace (13 July 2015)
- Oregon Public Broadcasting -NIDA grant and Marijuana in Sewers (24 June 2015)
- Discovery Channel-Daily Planet (12 May 2015)
- Feds paying for sewer analysis of pot usage in Washington (22June2015)
- The Spokesman-Review, Spokane pot use measurable by THC levels in wastewater, panel told (24 Sept 2014)
- KOMO 4 News: Sewage test: Will you smoke pot now that it's legal? (24 July 2014)
- Radio New Zealand, This Way Up (8March2014)
- GIZMODO: Ecstasy in London? Heroin in Zagreb? The Answer Is Found In The Sewers (24 Jan 2014)