Manisha Choudhary

Manisha Choudhary is an Assistant Professor in the Carl and Melinda Helwig Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering at Kansas State University and a Water Scholar with the Kansas Water Institute. Her research focuses on improving water quality and addressing emerging contaminants in drinking water, wastewater, agricultural systems and contaminated soils. She studies how contaminants behave in these systems and develops treatment approaches using engineered adsorbents, nonthermal plasma and microwave technology. A key part of her work is finding ways to regenerate and reuse treatment materials, including granular activated carbon, while reducing the need for chemical additives and limiting harmful byproducts. Before joining K-State, Choudhary was an L.L.Bean Postdoctoral Scholar in civil and environmental engineering at the University of Maine and a postdoctoral researcher at Temple University. She was named a 2024 AAEES 40 Under 40 Rising Star in Environmental Engineering and Science and selected as a 2025 Purdue Trailblazers in Engineering Fellow.