College X · ELUSK DEPT 1 · Water Equity Track · Year 1
The system was never built to see them.
Mira Bowles spent her whole youth learning that instrumentation equals protection. Now she’s a first-year with a stack of printed papers and a shape she can feel but hasn’t proven — the people the water system never reached are invisible to it by design. No pipe, no plant, no signal, no data.
MB
◆ The Question She Carries
Her grandfather, Hector Bowles, gave thirty years to Metro Water Services in Nashville. His rule is the spine of everything she does: “You can’t make it drinkable if you’re afraid to touch the river.”
As a high-school senior she built Drinky (drinking-water monitoring) and Stinky (wastewater monitoring) — AI that flags anomalies hours before operators would, then hands the decision back to the humans who’ve done the work for decades. Her creed was simple: augment, never replace. Human in the loop, always.
“Drinky and Stinky were built to augment the operators. But on the equity side there are no operators. The human in the loop is the resident standing in their own backyard.”
That’s the floor dropping. Mira is the measurement person — which makes her exactly the one who feels it when she meets people her tools can’t reach. So the creed has to be rebuilt: augment whom, for whose benefit? That question is the heart of the paper she hasn’t written yet.
Profile
CollegeX · Engineering
Building10 · ELUSK
DepartmentDEPT 1
AdvisorLester Pearson
Year1 of ~4
OriginNashville, TN
Path hereTRU / One Chain pipeline
Student IDprovisional
How She Got Here
Drinky & Stinky won her the TRU Foundation “AI innovation that augments rather than replaces” scholarship (One Chain / ONEED PEEPS; Gateway Center Arena, Atlanta, Jan 2025). Co-honorees: James Park and Kai Martinez.
The scholarship is an HBCU-to-career pipeline — it lands her at OPA as a first-year in the water program, with the equity paper as her four-year through-line toward the senior capstone.
Tab 1 of 4Overview
NETOPA · Source Log · The Opening Stack
Five papers. One checkbox.
She’s collecting, not running experiments. The keystone puts her thumb on one word — septic — and four more map the walls: access, hazard, ethics, and time. One honest, credited link each.
✎ Annotated Sources
KEYSTONE · the paper that puts the thumb on it
septic
“Improved sanitation” — and the stories the missing 3% hides
Mendoza Grijalva L, Hastie AG, Gong M, Rojas Cala B, Hunter B, Wallace S, Mejia R, Flowers C, Osman KK, Tarpeh WA (2025). “Community-driven and water quality indicators of sanitation system failures in a rural U.S. community.” Preprint, arXiv:2503.22938. · arxiv.org/abs/2503.22938
The one that puts her thumb on a single word: septic. The JMP reports 97% of the U.S. has “improved sanitation” — so she asks what the missing 3% hides. Septic is the box the dataset counts as served, even when the tank backs up into the yard or gets swapped for a straight pipe out back. Classify systems beyond the SDG ladder and the inequity inside a “fully served” country shows up. Community-based participatory research — residents in from conception — which is also her answer to the ethics wall, demonstrated in method. (Stanford / Tarpeh lab with CREEJ; Catherine Flowers named factually as co-author, no invented quotes.)
Black Belt clay: impermeable, poorly suited to septic · of 96 households surveyed: 46 septic / 41 centralized / ~9% straight piping
SOURCE 01 · the access wall
access
The sewer divide — who is even connected?
Allaire M, Nikkhou S, Lu P-J, Bakchan A (2026). “The sewer divide: Challenges and new approaches for closing gaps in U.S. wastewater access.” PLOS Water 5(3): e0000525. · doi.org/10.1371/journal.pwat.0000525
Gives her the framework. Local autonomy and fragmented governance decide who is connected to a wastewater system in the first place. The wall isn’t the chemistry — it’s the map of who got a pipe. No pipe means no plant; no plant means no signal; no signal means no data. The communities carrying the highest hazard are the ones the monitoring world literally cannot see.
SOURCE 02 · the hazard wall
hazard
The hazard rendered in dirt
Harmon OA, Lott MEJ, Elliott M, McGlohn E, Brown J (2026). “Environmental pathogen hazards reveal need for improved sanitation infrastructure in Alabama’s Black Belt.” PLOS Water. · doi.org/10.1371/journal.pwat.0000393
Gives her the ground truth — the hazard in a place her SCADA-fed system has nothing to read. She keeps this framed at the research level: this is what the paper measured, not a named town’s failure.
culturable E. coli mean: 224 MPN/g (impacted soils) vs 0.5 MPN/g (unimpacted)
qPCR detections: Acanthamoeba spp. · Balantidium coli · Blastocystis spp. · Cryptosporidium spp. · rotavirus
qPCR detections: Acanthamoeba spp. · Balantidium coli · Blastocystis spp. · Cryptosporidium spp. · rotavirus
SOURCE 03 · the ethics wall
ethics
The guardrail against her own teenage instinct
Tamuhla T, Shitindo M, Nichols M, Pang VJ, Liu EJ, Tiffin N (2026). “Accessible ethics and legal advice for wastewater surveillance: The WWS ethics adviser app.” PLOS Water. · doi.org/10.1371/journal.pwat.0000422
Her instinct is to instrument everything. This is the line that stops her, and she’s underlined it: the community should be the primary beneficiary of surveillance, not its subject. Also a quiet flag — somebody published the exact kind of interactive decision tool for non-expert users that the people around her keep building. Parallel convergence, already here.
SOURCE 04 · the time wrinkle
time
“Served” isn’t stable across time
Ferreira CM, et al. (2026). “Estimating the impacts of recurrent and expanding coastal flooding on septic systems in Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay.” Climatic Change 179(4): 80. · doi.org/10.1007/s10584-026-04172-x
The last twist: today’s working septic is tomorrow’s failure as the water table climbs. Sea-level rise 2020→2060 more than doubles the affected septic systems, and onsite systems get a fraction of the funding treatment plants do. A checkbox that reads “served” is a moving target — and it moves fastest under the most vulnerable. Bonus: this paper cites Allaire — her sources are starting to cite each other.
Tab 2 of 4Source Log
NETOPA · Advisor Log · Early Freshman Entries
Where the creed starts to crack.
Her advisor, the OPA hydrologist, keeps steering her off “instrument everything” and toward the harder question. One source is a guess. Two is a hypothesis. Three is engineering — the Three Gauge Test, his method.
▤ Recent Meetings
Brought him the three-paper stack. Pearson ran it through the Three Gauge Test on the spot: the access paper is gauge one, the hazard paper gauge two — “you’ve got a hypothesis, not an argument. Find the third gauge before you write a word.” Then the harder push: the ethics paper isn’t a footnote, it’s the load-bearing wall. “You want to point your instruments at people who never asked to be measured. Tell me who benefits before you tell me what you’d measure.”
Action items
→ Decide the third gauge — does the paper argue access, hazard, or the seam between them?
→ Rewrite the working question from “what can I measure” to “augment whom, for whose benefit”
→ Keep the Black Belt evidence at the paper level, never a named town
→ Decide the third gauge — does the paper argue access, hazard, or the seam between them?
→ Rewrite the working question from “what can I measure” to “augment whom, for whose benefit”
→ Keep the Black Belt evidence at the paper level, never a named town
The moment the creed cracked. She walked in proud of Drinky and Stinky — augment, never replace. Pearson didn’t argue with it; he just asked the question that doesn’t have an operator on the other end: “Your whole creed assumes a human in the loop who knows the system. Out where there’s no pipe, who is that human? And is your instrument there to protect them, or to study them?” She didn’t have an answer. That’s the paper.
Standing question
→ Every result gets measured against: augment whom, for whose benefit?
→ Every result gets measured against: augment whom, for whose benefit?
First meeting of the term. Pearson set the posture for the whole source-collection phase: “You’re a freshman with good instincts and no proof. Go verify yourself before anyone else has to.” Handed her the Three Gauge Test as the discipline for the year — collect, cross-check, and don’t call it engineering until the third gauge agrees.
Cross-reference
→ Research Integrity & Sourcing carries the Three Gauge Test — same method, same professor (Pearson)
→ Equity half of the work may warrant a DCV or DOSA co-advisor [TO CONFIRM]
→ Research Integrity & Sourcing carries the Three Gauge Test — same method, same professor (Pearson)
→ Equity half of the work may warrant a DCV or DOSA co-advisor [TO CONFIRM]
Tab 3 of 4Advisor Log
NETOPA · Research Map · Tap each stage to open it
The measurement divide.
The shape she’s zeroing in on, honestly marked. Green is settled. Aqua is where she’s working right now. Red is the wall that becomes the senior paper. The wall is the thesis.
◇ The Shape
1
Instrumentation = protectionSettled · Nashville, Drinky & Stinky
›
Where she starts
Her whole youth taught her that a sensor is a kind of care — flag the anomaly hours early, hand the call back to the operator. Drinky and Stinky were built on that faith. She doesn’t doubt it; she just learns it has an edge.
Her whole youth taught her that a sensor is a kind of care — flag the anomaly hours early, hand the call back to the operator. Drinky and Stinky were built on that faith. She doesn’t doubt it; she just learns it has an edge.
2
The access wallSettled · the sewer-divide framework
›
Framework in hand
The formal system is built for the already-connected. Fragmented governance decides who gets a pipe — and the tools only work where there’s infrastructure. The unconnected are invisible to the system by design.
The formal system is built for the already-connected. Fragmented governance decides who gets a pipe — and the tools only work where there’s infrastructure. The unconnected are invisible to the system by design.
3
Collecting & zeroing inActive · where she lives right now
›
In progress
The opening stack: access, hazard, ethics. She can feel the shape — the measurement divide — but she hasn’t proven which seam the paper sits on. This is the honest middle of a freshman’s whole first year.
The opening stack: access, hazard, ethics. She can feel the shape — the measurement divide — but she hasn’t proven which seam the paper sits on. This is the honest middle of a freshman’s whole first year.
4
Augment whom, for whose benefit?The wall · not answered yet
›
Unanswered — the thesis
Her creed assumed an expert operator in the loop. Out where there’s no pipe, the human in the loop is the resident in their own backyard. Is the instrument there to protect them, or to study them? Answer that and the senior paper writes itself.
Her creed assumed an expert operator in the loop. Out where there’s no pipe, the human in the loop is the resident in their own backyard. Is the instrument there to protect them, or to study them? Answer that and the senior paper writes itself.
5
The senior paperNorth star · not yet named
›
Four years out
The water-equity argument, written and defended. Working-title slot left open for Mira to name — [senior-paper title: not yet named]. The north star, not the current work.
The water-equity argument, written and defended. Working-title slot left open for Mira to name — [senior-paper title: not yet named]. The north star, not the current work.
224 vs 0.5
MPN/g of culturable E. coli — impacted soils vs unimpacted, from the hazard paper. The gap is the whole argument: the highest hazard sits exactly where the monitoring world has nothing to read.
▤ First-Year Class List
| Course | Home | Section | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| OPAT 102 — PHIN Integration (NULL)Universal first-year requirement. Ortega Protocol: AI advises, humans decide — rhymes with her own “human in the loop.” | Freshman Studies (NULL) · College 0 | freshman req. | real / canonical |
| Intro to Environmental & Water Systems [code TBD]Her home-department core. Hydrology / treatment basics — same hallway as Seika. | ELUSK · College X · Bldg 10 · DEPT 1 | 4.10.x | proposed |
| Environmental Justice & Communities [code TBD]The equity half — where “who was never connected” becomes a human question, not a pipe question. | DCV (Humanities / ATLAS) · College V · Bldg 5 | 4.5.x | proposed |
| Data, Surveillance & AI Ethics [code TBD]Maps to the WWS Ethics Adviser source. Teaches the guardrail her teenage self never had. | DOSA (Cybersecurity & AI Ethics) · College I · Bldg 1 | 4.1.x | proposed |
| Research Integrity & Sourcing [code TBD]The Three Gauge Test lives here — one source is a guess, two a hypothesis, three is engineering. Professor: Lester Pearson (also her advisor). Drives her source-collection phase. | HASS (Human-AI Systems Stewardship) | 4.9.x | proposed |
⚠ This class structure is aspirational — not yet formally set up. Course codes and section numbers are [PROPOSED], to be reconciled against the master OPA catalog. The only confirmed freshman requirement is OPAT 102 (NULL, College 0). The only wired faculty are Lester Pearson (advisor + Three Gauge Test) and Dr. Etadol Obodat (ELUSK department anchor); no other faculty invented.
Where This Touches the Universe
Drinky & Stinky · her origin instrument →
The high-school project that started it all. Augment, never replace — the creed she now has to rebuild for people her tools can’t reach.
TRU / One Chain scholarship →
How she got here — the “AI that augments rather than replaces” honor, and the pipeline that landed her at OPA.
Lester Pearson · OPA Hydrologist
Advisor. Keeps her aimed at who benefits, not what can I measure. The Three Gauge Test is his method.
Dr. Etadol Obodat · ELUSK DEPT 1
Environmental-engineering professor and department anchor — same hallway. Seika’s advisor; a familiar face in Mira’s home department.
Her Student Passport · live tracker →
The dashboard Mira sees when she logs into College X — milestone stamps and the daily AI check-in on where her research stands. This card is the portrait; the passport is the working desk.
Tab 4 of 4Research Map