Dr. Janet E. Stout is president and director of Special Pathogens Laboratory, and research associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh Swanson School of Engineering in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Internationally recognized for pioneering research in Legionella, her expertise includes disinfection and control strategies for the prevention of Legionnaires’ disease and other waterborne pathogens. Dr. Stout is credited as the first to demonstrate the link between the presence of Legionella in hospital water systems and Legionnaires’ disease. This seminal discovery shifted the focus from cooling towers to water distributions systems as the primary source for Legionnaires’ disease. Published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1982, her findings changed the direction of research and expanded the water treatment industry’s approach to controlling Legionella. To date, Dr. Stout has evaluated every major Legionella disinfection technology used today. A clinical and environmental microbiologist for more than 30 years, Dr. Stout has published more than 100 publications of seminal research on Legionnaires’ disease in major medical and scientific peer-reviewed journals. In addition, she has coauthored Legionella chapters in the American Journal of Infection Control (APIC Text), the Manual of Clinical Microbiology, and UptoDate.com. Dr. Stout has served on editorial review boards for Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, International Journal of Environmental Health, the Journal of Clinical Microbiology, and Water Research. An advocate for prevention, Dr. Stout assisted in developing the first Legionella prevention guideline in the United States, which is adopted as a proactive model by national and global health agencies and organizations. She is a board member and serves on the Legionella committee for the Cooling Technology Institute. Dr. Stout is also member of the ASHRAE committees for Legionella Guideline 12 and ANSI / ASHRAE Standard 188 Legionellosis: Risk Management in Building Water Systems. A much sought after speaker, Dr. Stout presents at numerous national and international scientific and professional conferences, and is a regularly invited speaker to the International Symposium on Legionnaires’ disease, the Royal Society of Public Health, and the European Working Group on Legionnaires’ disease. Dr. Stout holds a PhD in infectious disease microbiology from the University of Pittsburgh.

The Falkinham lab focuses on understanding the epidemiology, ecology, physiology, and genetics of the nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM); primarily the Mycobacterium avium complex (MAC). NTM are environmental opportunistic pathogens whose source of infection includes soil and drinking water. Lab studies have identified physiologic features of NTM that are determinants of their ecology and transmission to humans: including, surface hydrophobicity, attachment to surfaces, concentration in aerosols, resistance to disinfectants (e.g., chlorine), growth in protozoa and amoebae, and ability to grow on low concentrations of organic matter at low oxygen levels. Thus, NTM are ideally suited for growth and persistence in plumbing in households and hospitals and in medical equipment. Significantly, NTM isolated from patients and their household plumbing share the same DNA fingerprints. Further, households with well water sources and high hot water heater temperatures seldom have NTM and that carbon-containing, in-line filters, including those in water taps and refrigerators, harbor high numbers of NTM. Since October 2015, the Falkinham lab has been developing protocols to disinfect heater-coolers, operating room instruments linked to infection by Mycobacterium chimaera and Mycobacterium abscessus. Current laboratory studies involve: (1) investigating the possible role of second homes in NTM infection, (2) studying the behavior of NTM in household water heaters, (3) understanding the role of trehalose in adaptive heat-resistance of NTM, and (4) describing the mechanism of exclusion of NTM from household plumbing by members of the genus Methylobacterium. In 2003, Dr. Falkinham received the Gardner Middlebrook Award for his contributions to Mycobacteriology. In 2015, Dr. Falkinham was elected Fellow of the Royal Society for Public Health.

Dr. Mark LeChevallier is the principal and manager of Dr. Water Consulting LLC, a part-time consulting business, after retiring from American Water at the end of 2017. Dr. LeChevallier received his Bachelor of Science and Master’s degrees in Microbiology from Oregon State University, and his Ph.D. in Microbiology from Montana State University. Dr. LeChevallier has authored over 300 research papers and has received awards from the American Water Works Association for outstanding contributions to the science of water treatment. He was the recipient of the George Warren Fuller award in 1997 from the New Jersey section of the American Water Works Association, the Abel Wolman Award in 2012 and the A.P. Black award for research in 2015, both from the American Water Works Association. He currently serves on the Drinking Water subcommittee of the USEPA Science Advisory Board, the Water Science & Technology Board for the National Academy of Science and was a member of the NAS Legionella workgroup. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology.

Emeritus Professor, Nancy School of Medicine and Medical Director, aqua-tools, Inc. Dr. Philippe Hartemann specializes in environmental and human health related to drinking water microbiology, environmental epidemiology and surveillance, waterborne outbreaks, hospital hygiene and nosocomial infection control. He has been a member of numerous working groups (WHO, EU, NATO) for water and Legionella. He was head of the Department of Hospital Hygiene in the University Hospital of Nancy and Professor of Public Health from 1985 to 2016 and interim CEO of the Luxembourg National Health Laboratory from 2016 to 2018. He is now a Distinguished Professor of the School of Medicine of Nancy and a consultant for aqua-tools, Inc. He also chaired the EC’s Scientific Expert Committee on Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks and the French Society of Hospital Hygiene and Infection Control.

Dr. Joseph Cotruvo is president of Joseph Cotruvo and Associates, Water, Environment and Public Health Consultants, with a PhD in Physical Organic Chemistry from the Ohio State University. He is Board Certified in Environmental Sciences from the American Academy of Environmental Engineers and Scientists, and recipient of their Science Award (2019). He is a Research Professor in Chemistry and of Environmental Sciences at the University of Toledo. He initiated and organized the 1st NSF International conference on Legionella (August 2018). Advisory work includes the World Health Organization’s Guidelines for Drinking Water Quality Committee, and numerous oversight panels on drinking water quality, desalination, and recycled potable water reuse projects. At USEPA he was the first Director of the Drinking Water Standards Division, and Director of the Risk Assessment Division in the Toxics program. His Drinking Water Standards Division developed comprehensive national drinking water regulations and risk assessments for microbial contaminants, organic and inorganic chemicals, radionuclides, the original regulations for THM disinfection by-products, surface water filtration, and Lead and Copper corrosion control rules, and initiated EPA’s Drinking Water Health Advisory Program. He was a member of the Board of Directors of DCWater for 8 years and chair of the Water Quality Committee. He has over 300 publications, presentations and articles on health risk, water quality and safety.

CEO-President, aqua-tools, Inc. Marc Raymond has a broad background in immunology and microbiology. For over 15 years, he has held many different roles at international scientific companies, ranging from Researcher in the immunology department at Sanofi-Aventis to Marketing and Sales Manager at Bio-Rad. While at Bio-Rad, he was the International Water Product Manager in charge of developing and marketing a tool that rapidly detected and quantified Legionella using real-time PCR. In 2006, Marc launched his own company: aqua-tools, Inc. Known for its deep knowledge about membrane microfiltration, aqua-tools offers rapid microbial solutions that use second-generation ATP-metry and it has developed innovative point-of-use (POU) filters. The company also offers educational training about waterborne pathogens and does field audits that can show health care facilities where to install POU filters.