Ameet Pinto
Assistant Professor,
Civil and Environmental Engineering
Affiliated Faculty,
Marine and Environmental Sciences
Contact
- a.pinto@northeastern.edu
- 417 SN
360 Huntington Avenue
Boston, Massachusetts 02115
Social Media
Office
- 617.373.5241
Research Focus
Microbial ecology and physiology, drinking water treatment and distribution, wastewater treatment, public health microbiology, molecular microbiology, ‘omics analyses
About
Ameet is investigating microbial ecosystems at the interface of infrastructure and public / environmental health with particular focus on the urban water infrastructure – drinking water and wastewater systems. His goal is to characterize and manipulate microbial communities to (1) protect and improve public and environmental health and (2) improve functional reliability and economic feasibility of water infrastructure.
Ameet graduated in 2003 with his baccalaureate in Chemical Engineering from the Institute of Chemical Technology, University of Mumbai. He received his Master of Sciences in Environmental Engineering from the University of Alaska Fairbanks in 2005 and graduated with this PhD from Virginia Tech in 2009. His doctoral work was in the area of wastewater engineering with particular focus on upset event detection and mitigation and the effect of perturbation on the microbial ecology of activated sludge systems. Ameet completed his post-doc at the University of Michigan and subsequently worked at the University of Glasgow as a Lecturer (2012-2015) and then Senior Lecturer (2015) before joining Northeastern University in January 2016.
Education
- 2009 PhD in Civil Engineering at Virginia Tech
- 2005 MS in Environmental Engineering at University of Alaska Fairbanks
Professional Affiliations
- International Water Association
- American Water Works Association
- International Society of Microbial Ecology
- Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors
Research Focus
Microbial ecology and physiology, drinking water treatment and distribution, wastewater treatment, public health microbiology, molecular microbiology, ‘omics analyses
Research Initiatives
Engineered Water, Sustainability and Health
Selected Publications
- I. Bradley, A.J. Pinto, J.S. Guest, Design and Evaluation of Illumina MiSeq Compatible 18S rRNA Primers for Improved Characterization of Mixed Phototrophic Communities, EApplied and Environmental Microbiology, 89(19), 2016, 5878-5891
- Q.M. Bautista, J. Schroeder, M.C.R. Sevillano, R. Sungthong, U. Ijaz, W.T. Sloan, A.J. Pinto, Emerging Investigator Series: Microbial communities in Full Scale Drinking Water Systems- A Meta-Analysis, Environmental Science: Water Research and Technology, 2016, 631-644
- A.J. Pinto, D.N. Marcus, U.Z. Ijaz, Q.M. Bautista, G.J. Dick, L. Raskin, Metagenomic Evidence for the Presence of Comammox Nitrospira-like Bacteria in a Drinking Water System, mSphere Journal, 1, 2015
- J. Schroeder, M. Lunn, A.J. Pinto, L. Raskin, W.T. Sloan, Probabilistic Models to Describe the Dynamics of Migrating Microbial Communities, PLoS One, 10, 2015, e0117221
- A.J. Pinto, J. Schroeder, M. Lunn, W.T. Sloan, L. Raskin, Spatial-Temporal Survey and Occupancy-Abundance Modeling to Predict Bacteria Community Dynamics in the Drinking Water Microbiome, mBio Journal, 5(3), 2014
- A.J. Pinto, C. Xi, L. Raskin, Bacterial Community Structure in the Drinking Water Microbiome is Governed by Filtration Processes, Environmental Science and Technology, 46, 2012, 8851-8859
- A.J. Pinto, L. Raskin, PCR Biases Distort Bacterial and Archaeal Community Structure in Pyrosequencing Datasets, PLoS One, 7(8), 2012
May 08, 2019
Pinto Awarded NSF Grant for Biofilter Operation
CEE Assistant Professor Ameet Pinto was awarded a $340K NSF grant, in collaboration with Tanju Karanfil from Clemson University and Jess Brown from Carollo Engineers, for “Developing an Eco-Genomic Framework for Biofilter Operation”.
May 07, 2019
CEE PhD Students Receive NSF Graduate Research Fellowships
Two Northeastern Civil and Environmental Engineering PhD students, Cassandra Nickles and Katherine Vilardi, received 2019 Graduate Research Fellowships from the National Science Foundation (NSF). This highly prestigious and selective program has historically awarded only 10% of applicants. According to the NSF, “Fellows are anticipated to become knowledge experts who can contribute significantly to research, teaching, and innovations […]
Apr 09, 2019
FY20 TIER 1 Award Recipients
25 COE faculty and affiliates were recipients of FY20 TIER 1 Interdisciplinary Research Seed Grants for 18 different projects representing up to $900K dollars of investment in research.
Aug 30, 2018
Testing the Quality of the Charles River Water
CEE PhD student Max Rome and Assistant Professor Ameet Pinto are working with the Charles River Watershed Association to test the quality of the Charles River water in hopes of opening its first public swimming area. Source: News @ Northeastern In 1965, the water in the Charles River was so dirty that The Standells wrote […]
Jun 13, 2018
Pinto Receives ISME/IWA Bio Cluster Award
CEE Assistant Professor Ameet Pinto was selected as a recipient of the 2018 ISME/IWA Bio Cluster Award in the Rising Star Category. This prestigious prize rewards interdisciplinary research of outstanding merit at the interface of microbial ecology and water/wastewater treatment. The award will be presented at the IWA World Water Congress & Exhibition 2018 that will […]
Apr 24, 2018
Honoring Highest Achievements
Congratulations to the COE faculty and students that were honored at the 2018 Academic Honors Convocation.
Mar 15, 2018
Pinto Receives NSF CAREER Award
CEE Assistant Professor Ameet Pinto was awarded a $504K NSF CAREER award for “Developing a Spatial-Temporal Predictive Framework for the Drinking Water Microbiome”.
Dec 01, 2017
Assessing Water Quality After a Storm
CEE Professors April Gu (PI), Akram Alshawabkeh (co-PI), and Assistant Professor Ameet Pinto (co-PI) were awarded a $100K NSF grant to determine a “Timely Assessment of Water Quality to Reveal the Potential Ecological and Health Impact of Hurricanes at Puerto Rico”.
Sep 01, 2017
Pinto Awarded $330K NSF Grant
CEE Assistant Professor Ameet Pinto was awarded a $330K NSF grant for “Deciphering the role of comammox bacteria in nitrogen removal systems”. Dr. Pinto, whose research interests include microbial ecology and physiology, drinking water treatment and distribution, wastewater treatment and more, is revolutionizing the way water is treated for nitrogen.
Apr 09, 2017
Chance Discovery Has Big Implications for Clean Water
An accidental discovery made by CEE Assistant Professor Ameet Pinto and his group has revealed a type of bacteria capable of full nitrification.