Marc Edwards, BS '86

Well deserved surprise 

Think of the surprises you’ve got via a phone call:  Winning the church raffle.  Recovering a lost puppy.   Hearing from an old friend. 

Marc Edwards’s (BS, ’86) surprise call came from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, telling him he’d been awarded one of that organization’s prestigious fellowships—popularly known as “genius grants”.  The five-year, $500,000 grants—with no strings attached—go to people who show exceptional creativity in their work, with the prospect for still more achievement.  The foundation’s call, Edwards says, “was amongst the most satisfying moments of my career. There’s such a mystique about the fellowship, you don’t even know you’ve been nominated.”

The Charles Lunsford Professor of Civil Engineering at Virginia Tech, Edwards received the fellowship in support of his longtime research into the health hazards of home drinking water.  More precisely, the research group he leads looks at the internal corrosion processes in home plumbing--a problem that costs U.S. consumers billions of dollars each year and can endanger the safety of potable water.  Issues like corrosion of copper pipes might “sound run of the mill,” says Edwards, “but they’re very scientifically complex.  They also have a profound impact health-wise and financially; the problem can costs hundreds of thousands of dollars per building in damages.”

Lightning strike at UB 

Interestingly, Edwards’s professional lightning bolt struck when he was a UB biophysics major considering a medical career.  Fatefully, a guest lecturer in one of his classes spoke about the issues involved in the Love Canal tragedy.  “It struck me,” Edwards remembers, “that you could apply science and common sense to help people, and have a more profound impact than you could in the medical community.”  He made the jump into environmental engineering in graduate school.  He credits the thoroughness of UB’s program, however, with fully preparing him for the world of research: “Biophysics majors had to take three or four labs a semester.  All that experience paid off in grad school and as a professor because it allowed me to hit the ground running.”

Edwards attributes much of his success to always seeking the most rigorous challenges and following his heart.  “I sought to do things that no one else was doing when I became a professor,” he says.  His strategy of identifying a problem that few researchers are interested in and systematically figuring out how to lessen the hazard clearly has borne professional—and public health--fruit. 

The MacArthur Foundation is not the only organization to see the value in what Edwards is doing.  He has published more than 88 peer-reviewed journal articles, made more than 100 national and international conference presentations and delivered four keynote addresses.  He’s testified to the United States Congress on the issue of lead in Washington DC drinking water and received a Presidential Faculty Fellowship from The White House.  In 2004, Time Magazine dubbed him “The Plumbing Professor” and listed him among the four most important worldwide “innovators” in water.

Research saves lives

Today, one of the issues at which Edwards and his team are looking is the process by which people contract Legionnaires ’ disease from harmful bacteria that grows in hot water heaters and shows up in showers or hot tubs.  Edwards admits the team doesn’t know much at this point about how people are exposed or what causes the bacteria’s growth.  They’re focused instead on identifying simple steps—occasionally raising the heater water temperature, for instance --that homeowners might take to lessen the risk to themselves and family.  Estimates put the yearly deaths in this country from this cause at between 4,000 and 10,000.  Many people are not diagnosed correctly and ultimately die of pneumonia.  Edwards adds that deaths could actually number from 15,000 to 20,000 yearly.  “That’s a very high public health risk,” he explains.  “We take action usually if something kills one out of 10 million after a whole lifetime of exposure.  When you talk about known, preventable deaths on this order from drinking water, that’s off the charts.”
He’s also currently involved in a “battle” over lead in public-school drinking water.  “There are unacceptably high levels of lead in school water,” he says.  No laws address lead in school water, and “everyone thinks someone else is taking care of it.  If people knew they would be outraged.”

Though he confesses he “didn’t really know what I was getting into” when he moved into the world of public health, Edwards acknowledges that his work is “in demand.  It’s nice to be wanted.”

Written by Grace Lazzara
February 2008

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