About the Blue Colab

Do you know what’s in your drinking water? The chances are that, even after a quick search online, you don’t. Currently, there are no national policies for the real-time detection of contaminants in drinking water – meaning most people don’t find out something’s wrong until it’s too late.

Just one sip of contaminated water can cause severe illness – yet, still today, a conventional lab requires up to 48 hours to report analyses of samples that are taken only periodically.

The Blue CoLab at Pace University’s Seidenberg School of Computer Science and Information Systems aims to change that. Instead of reacting to sickness after it breaks out, the Blue CoLab asks the question: what if we knew the quality of our water before we drink it?

According to research from the University of Arizona, around 1.5 million people become ill after drinking water contaminated with pathogens every year. If people were able to check the quality of their water in real time prior to drinking it, this could be avoided.

At the Blue CoLab, students combine data science, app development, environmental monitoring, robotics, interdisciplinary problem solving, and design thinking to come up with solutions that will serve the greater population. Each academic year, twelve or so students work as a team under the leadership of faculty member and lab director John Cronin to launch solar-powered data monitoring stations into Choate Pond on the Pleasantville campus and collect data on the quality of the water.

The project also works out of Ossining, New York, where samples from the Hudson River are monitored and analyzed.

The Blue CoLab at Seidenberg offers all Pace students the opportunity for training in real-time water monitoring technologies. Join us as the foremost technology advocate for innovations in the protection of human and environmental health.