Catherine Faruolo ’23 MPH wants people to care about their health without worrying about what’s beyond their control.

She doesn’t want them to wonder, for instance, if their tap water is safe to drink. 

As a public health professional, Faruolo works to keep the public safe by monitoring wastewater for evidence of disease and outbreaks, sometimes even before symptoms appear in the community.

The job is a bit like being a “disease detective” on behalf of the public, says Faruolo who is now building on the knowledge and skills she received as a graduate student at Syracuse and previous positions at county health departments. She was recently selected for the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists’ Applied Epidemiology Fellowship.

The highly selective fellowship aims to train recent graduate students to become epidemiologists for state and local health departments. The two-year position required a recent move to Seattle, Washington where Faruolo is working with the Washington State Department of Health to help coordinate wastewater testing to monitor infectious disease pathogens in the state.

“I am very excited about this new opportunity, and I am incredibly grateful for the support my professors from Syracuse have provided me along the way, even after graduation,” she says. “To this day, I maintain communication with many of them and seek their guidance.”

Faruolo is grateful for the mentorship she received as a graduate research assistant for David Larsen, department chair and professor of public health.