High throughput meta-omics methods are used to investigate microbial community structure and function in environmental engineering research. While this makes the microbial world more accessible, robust, and coherent data interpretation is not straightforward. Further, the technologies underpinning these methods are also changing at a rapid pace; this can make choosing hypothesis-appropriate methodology also very challenging. The key objective of this workshop is to outline best practices for method(s) selection, implementation, and data interpretation for quantitative microbial community structure and function characterization. Organizers: Juliet Johnston, Georgia Institute of Technology; Rose Kantor, University of California Berkley; Christopher Lawson, University of Toronto; Fangqiong Ling, Washington University in St. Louis; Ameet Pinto, Georgia Institute of Technology; Jacob Price, Stroud Water Research Center; Ryan Ziels, University of British Columbia