Publications Overview

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory 

My main project during my post-doc at Berkeley Lab was a national greenhouse gas inventory of 15,000+ wastewater treatment plants in the United States (El Abbadi et al, 2025). For each facility, we identified the treatment processes and calculated greenhouse gas emissions both on- and off-site. We found that methane emissions are a key contributor to overall climate impact of wastewater treatment, with our results nearly triple current government estimates - highlighting the importance of immediately implementing methane leak detection and repair programs at wastewater treatment plants. I conducted follow-on research evaluating the economic impact of methane leaks for facilities with onsite energy recovery, currently in peer review. 

• “Benchmarking greenhouse gas emissions from U.S. wastewater treatment plants for targeted reduction.” Nature Water (2025). [Paper]
  Sahar H. El Abbadi,* Jianan Feng,* Abigayle Rose Hodson, Maryam Amouamouha, Margaret M. Busse, Christina Polcuch, Pengxiao Zhou, Jordan Macknick, Jeremy S. Guest, Jennifer R. Stokes-Draut, Jennifer B. Dunn.
  * Denotes equal contribution
  ★ Published Open Access

• “Evaluating economic opportunities and challenges for energy recovery from methane leaks during wastewater treatment.” In peer review at Environmental Science and Technology. [Earth ArXiv Pre-print]
  Sahar H. El Abbadi, Trung Le, Abigayle R. Hodson, Evan D. Sherwin, Joaquin Jamieson, Cuihong Song, Zhiyong Jason Ren, Jennifer R. Stokes-Draut. 

I also contributed to research on modeling and measuring water and wastewater energy requirements and greenhouse gas emissions, led by collaborators at Berkeley Lab and Princeton University: 

• “Validating and Comparing Energy Consumption Estimation Methods at Water Resource Recovery Facilities.” Environmental Research: Water (2026). [Paper]
  Abigayle R. Hodson, Sahar H. El Abbadi, Rania Lachhab, Xiatong Li, Zhiyong Jason Ren, Christopher M. Chini, Jennifer R. Stokes-Draut.
  ★ Published Open Access

• “The Impact of Clean Grid Transition on the Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Water Resource Recovery Facilities." Environmental Science and Technology (2025). [Paper]
  Xiatong Li, Cuihong Song, Sahar H. El Abbadi, Jennifer Stokes-Draut, Zhiyong Jason Ren

• "Bridging Data Scarcity and Method Calibration in Greenhouse Gas Monitoring of Wastewater Systems." Environmental Science and Technology (2025). [Paper]
  Yuqing Yan, Cuihong  Song, Jun-Jie Zhu, Sahar H. El Abbadi, Jennifer R. Stokes-Draut, Zhiyong Jason Ren. 

Stanford Methane Controlled Releases 

In Fall 2022, I led the Brandt research group methane controlled release campaign in which we tested 22 different methane sensing technologies: five airplanes, nine satellites, and eight ground-based continuous monitoring sensors.  In my role as postdoc & project lead, I oversaw all the different aspects of implementing this extensive field campaign, including: fundraising; participant recruitment; experimental design; equipment design with Volta Fabrication; field site selection and scheduling logistics; field research operation with Rawhide Leasing, personnel deployment, and onsite safety; data collection strategy; data cleaning and processing for use in all subsequent publications.

Fall 2022 controlled releases resulted in the following publications: 

• "Technological Maturity of Aircraft-Based Methane Sensing for Greenhouse Gas Mitigation." Environmental Science & Technology (2024). [Paper]
  S.H. El Abbadi, Z. Chen, P. M. Burdeau, J.S. Rutherford, Y. Chen, Z. Zhang, E.D. Sherwin, A. R. Brandt.
  ★ Published Open Access

• "Comparing continuous methane monitoring technologies for high-volume emissions: a single-blind controlled release study." ES&T Air (2024). [Paper]
  Z. Chen*; S.H. El Abbadi*; E.D. Sherwin; P.M. Burdeau; J.S. Rutherford, Y. Chen, Z. Zhang, A.R. Brandt.
  * Denotes equal contribution
  ★ Published Open Access

• "Single-blind test of nine methane-sensing satellite systems from three continents." Atmospheric Measurement Techniques (2024). [Paper]
  E.D. Sherwin; S.H. El Abbadi, P.M. Burdeau, Z. Zhang, Z. Chen, J.S. Rutherford, Y. Chen, A.R. Brandt.
  ★ Published Open Access

• "A  new technique for airborne measurements to quantify methane emissions over a wind range: implication and validation."  Atmospheric Measurement Techniques (2024). [Paper]
  J. F. Dooley, K. Minschwaner, M.K. Dubey, S.H. El Abbadi, E.D. Sherwin, A.G. Meyer, E. Follansbee, J. E. Lee.
  ★ Published Open Access

Ongoing controlled releases collaborations: 

• “Unlocking credible space-based methane sensing through a year-long single-blind test.” In peer review at Nature. [Pre-print]
  Frances Reuland, Taylor Adams, Kevin Galvin, Evan D. Sherwin, Sahar H. El Abbadi, Eric A. Kort, Adam R. Brandt.

Stanford Criddle and Luby Lab Research

I completed my PhD in the Criddle and Luby Labs at Stanford University, through the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. My research focused on how bacteria can be incorporated into food production to improve resiliency and incentivize greenhouse gas capture: 

• "Displacing fishmeal with protein derived from stranded methane." Nature Sustainability  (2021). [Paper]
  S.H. El Abbadi; E.D. Sherwin; A.R. Brandt; S.P. Luby; C.S. Criddle.
  ★ Author's version available for free here (posted with permission).
  Additional reading:
  Behind the Paper blog post (Springer Nature Sustainability Community)
  Feeding fish with fumes by Richard S. Cottrell (Nature Sustainability News & Views)

• "Engineering the dark food chain." Environmental Science and Technology (2019).  [Paper].
  S.H. El Abbadi & C.S. Criddle.
  ★ Author's version available for free here (posted with permission).

During my PhD, I collaborated with fellow students who explored a range of environmental challenges related to waste management and resource recovery from wastewater: 

• "More than a fertilizer: wastewater derived struvite as a high value, sustainable fire retardant." Green Chemistry (2021).  [Paper]
  A.H. Kim; A.C. Yu; S.H. El Abbadi; K. Lu; D. Chan; E.A. Appel; C.S. Criddle. 

• "Membrane and fluid contactors for safe and efficient methane delivery in methanotrophic bioreactors." Journal of Environmental Engineering (2020). [Paper]
  J.L. Meraz; K.L. Dubrawski; S.H. El Abbadi; K.-H Choo; C.S. Criddle. 

• "Fate of hexabromocyclododecane, a common flame retardant, in polystyrene-degrading mealworms." Environmental Science and Technology (2019). [Paper]
  A.M. Brandon; S.H. El Abbadi; U. Ibekwe; Y. Cho; W-M. Wu; C.S. Criddle. 

• “Environmental monitoring for Ascaris egg remediation: a critical review.” Environmental Science and Pollution Research (2025). [Paper]
  Nathan I. Strong, Jack T. Andraka, Sung-Geun Woo, Sahar H. El Abbadi, Aaron J. Lewis, Sindy K.Y. Tang, Stephen P. Luby, Craig S. Criddle.