Pitiporn is currently a PhD candidate at UC-Irvine. Her Bachelor, Master and PhD majors are environmental engineering. 
Pitiporn involved with several water and wastewater treatment plant designs and constructions in Thailand during 2001-2004. Her Master and PhD research interest are ‘Improving the Understanding of Foaming and Bulking Filamentous Bacteria in Activated Sludge Using Molecular Tools’. Pitiporn is an inventor developing primers and probes successfully identify foaming bacteria in biological treatment processes using Polymerase Chain Reaction-Reverse Line Blot Hybridization (PCR-RLB). Additionally, she did study onGordonia amarae and Thiothrix spp. at two water reclamation plants in Orange County using quantitative PCR (qPCR), which leads to clarify the hidden causes of solids separation problems as well as feasible strategies to control and prevent these filamentous bacteria’s growth. Pitiporn has been awarded from many scholarships such as UCI faculty mentor program, Kirt Brooks memorial water environment scholarship, Anchor QAE and Nation Science Foundation-East Asia Pacific Summer Institute.

• Pitiporn Asvapathanagul, Hyeeun Bang, Hyeyoung Lee and Betty H. Olson "Concurrent Rapid Identification of Bulking and Foaming Bacteria"
• Pitiporn Asvapathanagul, Hyeeun Bang, Hyeyoung Lee, and Betty H. Olson "Concurrent rapid identification of filamentous bacteria using reverse-line blot hybridization"
• Zhonghua Huang, Phillip B. Gedalanga and Betty H. Olson "Distribution of Nitrobacter and Nitrospira Communities in an Aerobic Activated Sludge Bioreactor and their Contributions to Nitrite Oxidation"