Prior to her assistant professor position at the ChEE UA, Dr. Vicky Karanikola was a postdoctoral fellow at the Chemical and Environmental Engineering department at Yale University. Dr. Karanikola has an interdisciplinary engineering background combining a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the Technological Educational Institute of Central Macedonia, Greece an MSc degree in Civil Engineering from San Diego State University SDSU) and both MSc and PhD degrees in Environmental Engineering from the UA. Her PhD research focused on off-grid water and wastewater treatment through hybrid thermal processes Membrane Distillation) and Nanofiltration. During her postdoctoral appointment she focused on membrane material synthesis and modification for water and wastewater treatment. Alongside with her academic career, she is very strongly involved with EWB Engineers without Borders) an organization that works on engineering projects in developing communities. She served as the mentor of the UA chapter and is currently involved with the EWB-USA headquarters as the vice president of the EWB Mountain Region Steering Committee. Dr. Karanikola's research work with marginalized communities at Tribal Nations was recently recognized with the Agnese Nelms Haury Program in Environment and Social Justice Faculty fellowship.