Led by the University of Tennessee with partners at the University of Puerto Rico, the PAWES Engineering Research Center (ERC) planning grant, funded by the National Science Foundation, is integrating community perspectives and concerns into research initiatives to develop innovative solutions for optimizing wastewater treatment and water conservation with energy security and rural and tribal workforce development.  The PAWES ERC planning grant has helped identify unique team capabilities for development of biosensors to track pathogens (e.g., COVID-19) and chemicals (e.g., antiviral drugs) in sewage, allowing for better epidemiological studies. Data from wastewater treatment plants around the world could be collected on a common server/platform and a big data approach using machine learning and artificial intelligence could be used to track and alert about potential epidemics in real time.