Council on Microbial Sciences (COMS) Council Members

Suzanne M.J. Fleiszig, O.D., Ph.D., is a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. She received a Doctor of Optometry degree and Ph.D. in Microbiology at the University of Melbourne. She completed her postdoctoral training in Infectious Disease at Harvard Medical School.
 
At UC Berkeley, Dr. Fleiszig holds appointments in Vision Science, Infectious Diseases & Immunity, Microbiology, and the School of Optometry. She studies microbe-host interactions using the eye as a model and key intrinsic defenses protecting epithelial surfaces in vivo against infection, conditions enabling susceptibility, and how the opportunistic pathogen P. aeruginosa colonizes epithelial surfaces.

Fleiszig is the current Chair of COMS. Previously she served ASM as Chair of Division D, an At-Large Division Councilor, an Interdisciplinary Councilor, and co-chaired the HMB community retreat. She serves on the editorial boards of Infection & Immunity, PLOS One, Frontiers in Cellular & Infection Microbiology, and PeerJ, and is a standing member of NIH’s Bacterial Pathogenesis (BACP) study section. She has also served as President of the International Society for Contact Lens Research, Vice-President of TFOS (ocular surface society), Chair of the Immunology & Microbiology Section for the Association for Research in Vision & Ophthalmology, and Chair of the Corneal Biology Gordon Research Conference.

Dr. Rebecca V. Ferrell is Vice Chair for the Council on Microbial Sciences and Professor of Biology at Metropolitan State University of Denver. She holds a Ph.D. from University of Missouri—Columbia School of Medicine. Rebecca is an active member of ASM's Rocky Mtn. Branch (RMB-ASM) and currently serving as Archivist; has served in every elected office of the RMB through the years, including 3 terms as President. She served on the Council Policy Committee of ASM and has served on COMS since its inception.Her research interests include nitrification and its regulation, environmental water quality and the limitations of Escherichia coli as an indicator organism. 

My work is in the area of microbial pathogenicity, including host-microbe-microbiome interactions. We study transcription regulatory mechanisms, applying genetic, and biochemical approaches, and our work includes chemical biology and therapeutic discovery. We focus primarily on the pathogens Vibrio cholerae, Campylobacter jejuni, and antibiotic-resistant Enterobacter spp. We have also studied Group A streptococci in a mouse model of necrotizing fasciitis. Our interest is in biology and pathogenicity of microbes at different scales: from questions around single molecule biology and protein-protein interactions governing key processes, to genomic-level interrogation in animal models of infection, to the role of complex microbiota in pathogen-host biology. A major, and highly rewarding, interest has been training undergraduates, graduate students and postdoctoral fellows in the lab and towards developing their own path to the future.

Candidate for ASM President-Elect
Professor of Biological Sciences and College Dean of Graduate & Professional Education
University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA

Education:

• B.A., Molecular Biology, UC Berkeley
• Ph.D., Biological Chemistry, UCLA School of Medicine

Professional Experience:

• Helen Hay Whitney Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow, Microbiology & Molecular Genetics, Harvard Medical School
• Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, and Professor of Biological Sciences, Molecular & Computational Biology Section, University of Southern California and Professor of Gerontology, USC
• Director of Graduate Studies, USC Molecular Biology Ph.D. program
• Deputy Director, USC Center for Excellence in Genomic Science, including Undergraduate & Minority Research Programs (NHGRI)
• Senior Scientist, Center for Dark Energy Biosphere Investigations (NSF Science & Technology Center)
• Director, Genomics & Geobiology Undergraduate Research Experience program
• USC Dornsife College Dean of Graduate and Professional Education

ASM Activities:

• ASM Distinguished Lecturer
• Member, ASM Awards Nominating Committee
• Fellow, American Academy of Microbiology
• ASM William A. Hinton Research Training Award
• Section Editor, EcoSal
• Editorial Board, Applied and Environmental Microbiology
• Editorial Board, Journal of Bacteriology
• Member, Colloquium Advisory Committee for the General Meeting
• ASM Judge, Intel International Science & Engineering Fair
• Member, ASM Task Force on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)

Publications:

Nanocalorimetry Reveals the Growth Dynamics of Escherichia coli Cells Undergoing Adaptive Evolution during Long-Term Stationary Phase.
Robador A, Amend JP, Finkel SE. Appl Environ Microbiol. 2019 Jul 18;85(15). pii: e00968-19. doi: 10.1128/AEM.00968-19. Print 2019 Aug 1. PMID:31152016

Physiological, Genetic, and Transcriptomic Analysis of Alcohol-Induced Delay of Escherichia coli
Ferraro CM, Finkel SE. Appl Environ Microbiol. 2019 Jan 9;85(2). pii: e02113-18. doi: 10.1128/AEM.02113-18. Print 2019 Jan 15. PMID:30389772

Adaptation of Escherichia coli to long-term batch culture in various rich media.
Westphal LL, Lau J, Negro Z, Moreno IJ, Ismail Mohammed W, Lee H, Tang H, Finkel SE, Kram KE. Res Microbiol. 2018 Apr;169(3):145-156. doi: 10.1016/j.resmic.2018.01.003. Epub 2018 Feb 15. PMID:29454026

Adaptation of Escherichia colito Long-Term Serial Passage in Complex Medium: Evidence of Parallel Evolution.
Kram KE, Geiger C, Ismail WM, Lee H, Tang H, Foster PL, Finkel SE. mSystems. 2017 Mar 7;2(2). pii: e00192-16. doi: 10.1128/mSystems.00192-16. eCollection 2017 Mar-Apr. PMID:28289732

Genomewide Dam Methylation in Escherichia coliduring Long-Term Stationary Phase.
Westphal LL, Sauvey P, Champion MM, Ehrenreich IM, Finkel SE. mSystems. 2016 Dec 13;1(6). pii: e00130-16. eCollection 2016 Nov-Dec. PMID:27981240

Fitness Cost of Fluoroquinolone Resistance in Clinical Isolates of Pseudomonas aeruginosaDiffers by Type III Secretion Genotype.
Agnello M, Finkel SE, Wong-Beringer A. Front Microbiol. 2016 Oct 4;7:1591. eCollection 2016. PMID: 27757111

Culture volume and vessel affect long-term survival, mutation frequency, and oxidative stress of Escherichia coli.
Kram KE, Finkel SE. Appl Environ Microbiol. 2014 Mar;80(5):1732-8. doi: 10.1128/AEM.03150-13. Epub 2013 Dec 27. PMID: 24375138

Competitive fitness during feast and famine: how SOS DNA polymerases influence physiology and evolution in Escherichia coli.
Corzett CH, Goodman MF, Finkel SE. Genetics. 2013 Jun;194(2):409-20. doi: 10.1534/genetics.113.151837. Epub 2013 Apr 15. PMID:23589461

Long-term survival during stationary phase: evolution and the GASP phenotype.
Finkel SE. Nat Rev Microbiol. 2006 Feb;4(2):113-20. Review. PMID:16415927

Research Interests:
Long-term survival and evolution of bacteria under both laboratory and environmental conditions; Characterization of the Growth Advantage in Stationary Phase (GASP) phenotype; Role of error-prone DNA polymerases on generation of genetic diversity and relative fitness; Effects of laboratory culture medium and conditions on long-term survival of bacteria; Role of extracellular electron transport in electricity production, bacterial respiration and survival; Mechanisms of survival of human microbiome organisms and communities; DNA organization during stationary phase in bacteria.

Statement:
As we emerge from significant reorganization, this is an exciting time for the ASM and its members. We have the opportunity to consider in what directions we should take the organization and how we can best continue ASM’s central role in elucidating the importance of microbiology in all sectors of society and spread appreciation of the fact that we are all “mainly microbe.”
As a member-focused organization, the primary function of the ASM should be to bring the membership together to further our scientific and professional interests. Clearly, the long-term health of the organization depends on maintaining our relevance with all members of the broad microbiology community, but, paramount must be a focus on our younger members. Nationwide, thousands of undergraduate and graduate students pursue studies in microbiology and allied fields and they will go on to address important societal issues, from the threat of antibiotic resistance to the effects of global warming. It is essential that the ASM engage with these students as early as possible. While ASM regional and student branches do an excellent job in this outreach, I would like to propose that the ASM take a more active approach, assuring that every undergraduate and graduate student nationwide becomes an ASM member as soon as they declare their major or path of study.
Ask what the ASM means to any member and you will probably receive as many answers as the number of people asked. While we cannot be all things to all people, we must pay attention to the needs of the membership. As I consider my role, should I enjoy the privilege of leading the ASM, I thought back to why I first joined as a student. Two factors drew me into the organization: the annual meeting and the journals. Receiving the Journal of Bacteriology, to mark-up at my leisure, not only was a great convenience, but was a tangible indication of my arrival as a full-fledged member of our scientific community. What I had not anticipated was being embraced by a broad community of scholars and the accompanying sense of belonging.
Today, with the advent of myriad new technologies, some of the old modes of interaction no longer exist, but the new platforms present exciting opportunities. However, gathering at conferences and having “face time” with colleagues in person never goes out of style. Therefore, one of the challenges for any organization as large as ours is how to enjoy the advantages of new technology while continuing to capitalize on those things we do best. To that end, while we continue to embrace new modes of publication and make the most of social media, we need to rekindle the kinds of interactions that only conferences, large and small, can provide. These personal interactions provide the “glue” that holds us together as individuals and as a nationally and internationally vital organization. All of these activities must be considered to be maximally relevant to the younger generation of microbiologists now being trained.

Back to Ballot

Colleen Kraft, M.D., M.Sc., completed residency in Internal Medicine and fellowship in Infectious Diseases in the Department of Medicine, Emory University, as well as a Masters in Clinical Research. She pursued post-graduate training in an ACGME-accredited Medical Microbiology fellowship. She ia a Medical Director of the Microbiology section for Emory Medical Laboratories at Emory Healthcare, as well as program director of the Medical Microbiology fellowship. She is an Associate Professor in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine and the Division of Infectious Diseases and serves as the associate chief medical officer of Emory University hospital. She rounds on the inpatient infectious diseases consult service so to link clinical microbiology to the bedside. Her research interests are in next-generation sequencing, microbiome therapeutics, and healthcare innovation factors. She is very passionate about mentorship of trainees and training the next generation. She believes that creativity and innovation in federal policy can bring about lasting positive change in science.

 

Dr. Donohue received his B.S. in Life Sciences from Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn and his Ph.D. in Microbiology from Pennsylvania State University. He became a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology in 2000 and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2009. Dr. Donohue served as ASM’s president in 2013. His laboratory’s research analyzes pathways and networks that microbes use to grow, generate biomass, or produce alternative fuels from sunlight or other renewable sources of energy. Dr. Donohue is also Director, Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center. 

Dr. Yates has been a faculty member at University of California, Riverside for more than 30 years. Her research has focused on characterizing and predicting the fate and transport of human enteric pathogenic microorganisms in soils, water and wastewater; development of methods for rapid, sensitive detection of infective enteric viruses and other environmentally transmitted human pathogens in environmental and biological media, human pathogen considerations associated with wastewater reuse and biosolids application to land; and the use of indicators for predicting pathogen occurrence and behavior in the environment.

Dr. Stefano Bertuzzi is the Chief Executive Officer of the American Society for Microbiology (ASM). ASM is one of the largest life sciences professional societies in the world, with more than 30,000 members and activities in 122 countries. Its mission is to promote and advance microbial sciences.

Bertuzzi has wide experience in science policy and scholarly publishing, and was a senior scientific executive at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the Office of the NIH Director, where he advised Dr. Elias Zerhouni on a wide range of science policy matters. He led the U.S. government negotiations with the European Union to achieve funding reciprocity between the NIH and the EU. He also worked with the Obama White House to develop an information system to captures the benefits of scientific investments during the Great Recession of 2008.

He is one of the leaders who spearheaded the Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) to fight the misuse of journal impact factor metric. He contributed to the NIH revision of the peer review system and to the development of the key public access policy for NIH funded research, which started the Open Access movement in scholarly publishing. He is the recipient of many national and international awards.

Most recently, Bertuzzi has led ASM's efforts to address the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. This included working directly with the White House COVID-19 Task Force, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to increase access to diagnostic testing supplies and addressing roadblocks to coronavirus testing. Bertuzzi penned a New York Times editorial and an mBio editorial outlining testing roadblocks and emphasizing the need for microbiologists and other scientists to support clinical laboratories to help contain the pandemic.

Bertuzzi received a Master's degree in Public Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and a Ph.D. in Molecular Biotechnology from the Catholic University in Italy. He served as Director of Neurogenetic Laboratory in the Dulbecco Institute Telethon Scientist in Milan, Italy. He has authored numerous research publications, editorials, and science policy pieces in top journals. He is a thoughtful leader in science and a fellow of the prestigious Aspen Institute and a member of the Cosmos Club. In 2020, the President of the Italian Republic bestowed upon Bertuzzi the title of Knight of the Order of the Star of Italy, one of the highest honors in the Italian Republic.

Arturo Casadevall, M.D., Ph.D. is a professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. He holds a joint appointment in molecular microbiology and immunology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. His research focuses on how microbes cause disease and how the immune system defends itself. Dr. Casadevall serves as chair of the W. Harry Feinstone Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

He received his M.S., Ph.D. and M.D. from New York University. Prior to joining Johns Hopkins, he served as director of the Center for Immunological Sciences at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. His team is currently engaged in understanding how hosts defend against the fungus Cryptococcus neoformans.

Dr. Casadevall’s work has been recognized with numerous awards, including the American Society for Microbiology Founders Distinguished Service Award, the National Institutes of Health Merit Award and the Rhoda Benham Award from Medical Mycology Society of America.
 

Vaughn Cooper is an evolutionary biologist and microbiologist. He received his bachelor’s degree from Amherst College and his Ph.D. in 2000 from Michigan State University under the mentorship of Richard Lenski, where he studied the evolution of specialization in the Long-Term Evolution Experiment of E. coli populations.

He was a Postdoctoral Fellow of the Michigan Society of Fellows at the University of Michigan, studying pathogens of the cystic fibrosis airway with John LiPuma. He was Assistant and Associate Professor at the University of New Hampshire from 2004-2015, moving to the University of Pittsburgh in 2015, where he is Professor of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, and Computational and Systems Biology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

Dr. Cooper co-founded and is Director of the Center for Evolutionary Biology and Medicine (CEBaM) and founded and directs the Microbial Genomics Sequencing center (MiGS).

His awards include the 2010 Outstanding Assistant Professor at UNH and an NSF CAREER award. His research is supported by the NIH, NSF, NASA, and by the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.

Dr. Cooper has published more than 70 peer-reviewed publications and invited chapters, and currently is supported by 12 active grants or contracts. The Cooper laboratory studies how bacterial populations (e.g. Burkholderia, Pseudomonas, Acinetobacter, and multispecies communities) evolve to adapt to new hosts and environments, particularly in biofilms. Other major interests include the evolution of antimicrobial resistance and why genome regions mutate/evolve at different rates. The laboratory also develops and promotes a laboratory curriculum called EvolvingSTEM, which enables high school students to learn key topics in evolution and heredity by conducting a week-long experiment with bacteria.

Dr. Elizabeth Marlowe is currently the Scientific Director and Head of R&D for Quest Diagnostics Infectious Diseases. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Arizona in 1999 and completed a Clinical/Public Health Microbiology Postdoctoral Fellowship in 2001 at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine. After her fellowship, she continued as an Adjunct Professor and Research Coordinator at the Wadsworth Anaerobe Laboratory where her research focused on the microbiome of the autistic gut and the role of toxin producing anaerobes. In 2002, Dr. Marlowe joined Gen-Probe with her primary research in the development of rapid molecular diagnostics for infectious diseases. Her team conducted some of the initial prototype and assay feasibility work on the Panther Fusion System. From 2005-2016, she provided laboratory leadership within the Kaiser Permanente Regional Laboratories in both Southern California, as the Assistant Director, and Northern California, as Director of Microbiology. At Kaiser she oversaw the translational research program that included participation in > 10 clinical trials. From 2016-2019, she held the position of Global Director of Medical Affairs at Roche Molecular Systems where she supported several product launches including the cobas CT/NG, TV/MG, MTB, MAI & RIF/INH assays. At Quest, her team has led the diagnostic testing efforts for the coronavirus pandemic.

She is a diplomate of the American Board of Medical Microbiology, past president for Southern California ASM, past editor for the Clinical Microbiology Newsletter and an inaugural member to the Council on Microbial Sciences for ASM. She has served as a member of CLIAC, the federal advisory committee for CLIA. Her research areas of interest are focused on the translation of new infectious disease diagnostics for use in evidence-based research for clinical microbiology practice.
 

Alison Criss, Ph.D. is Associate Professor of Microbiology, Immunology, and Cancer Biology at the University of Virginia School of Medicine and Director of the UVA Global Infectious Diseases Institute.

Her laboratory investigates how Neisseria gonorrhoeae initiates innate immune responses at human mucosal surfaces, yet resists killing by neutrophils recruited during infection. The ultimate goal of this research is to identify host and bacterial targets for new antimicrobials and vaccines, while limiting the inflammatory damage in gonorrhea.

Dr. Criss’ honors include selection as an American Public Health Association Thought Leader and ASM/ICAAC Young Investigator Awardee. She is committed to mentoring the next generation of scientists and serves as co-principal investigator of the UVA Infectious Diseases T32 Training Grant, teaches in graduate and medical courses, and advises graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and undergraduates in her lab.

Dr. Criss serves on the NIH Host Interactions with Bacterial Pathogens study section (2018-2022) and the editorial boards of Infection and Immunity and Journal of Bacteriology. She earned her B.A. in biology and chemistry from Williams College, Ph.D. in cell biology from Harvard Medical School and performed postdoctoral research at Northwestern University in microbiology and immunology.
 

Sean Crosson is currently Rudolph Hugh Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics at Michigan State University. 

He grew up in Grayson County, Texas, and received his B.A. in Biology from Earlham College in 1996, a Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics from The University of Chicago in 2002, and was a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University from 2003‐2005. Sean spent the first fourteen years of his faculty career at the University of Chicago, and moved to Michigan State University in 2019.

Students and postdocs in the Crosson Lab study the biology of bacteria that inhabit environments ranging from freshwater, to soil, to the interior of mammalian cells. His group utilizes a cross-disciplinary set of experimental tools as they work to understand how bacteria adapt their physiology to survive changing physical and chemical landscapes. Their work primarily focuses on Alphaproteobacteria including mammalian pathogens of the genus Brucella, the freshwater/soil bacterium Caulobacter crescentus, and the marine photoheterotroph Erythrobacter litoralis. In addition, his lab collaborates with clinicians and ecologists on studies of Bacteroides fragilis and other microbes that reside in the human gut.

Dr. Rebecca V. Ferrell is Vice Chair for the Council on Microbial Sciences and Professor of Biology at Metropolitan State University of Denver. She holds a Ph.D. from University of Missouri—Columbia School of Medicine. Rebecca is an active member of ASM's Rocky Mtn. Branch (RMB-ASM) and currently serving as Archivist; has served in every elected office of the RMB through the years, including 3 terms as President. She served on the Council Policy Committee of ASM and has served on COMS since its inception.Her research interests include nitrification and its regulation, environmental water quality and the limitations of Escherichia coli as an indicator organism. 

Amy Mathers, M.D., is an associate professor of Medicine and Pathology at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville. She received her B.S. in Cellular and Molecular Biology from Humbolt State University and her M.D. from the Loyola Stritch School of Medicine. She then did an Infectious Disease Fellowship and microbiology training at the University of Virginia.

Dr. Mathers's research focuses on the urgent problem of carbapenem resistance in Enterobacteriaceae. She has been evaluating detection methods in clinical microbiology and molecular transmission of carbapenemase genes for the last 12 years, with a focus on the hospital environment. Molecular characterization has included analysis of mobile resistance mechanisms with evaluation of plasmid evolution and mobility across species with next generation sequencing paired with more traditional techniques. Recently, Dr. Mathers has investigated the role that the hospital environment can play in evolution and dissemination of carbapenemase genes.

Dr. Shannon McQuaig Ulrich is a full professor at St. Petersburg College in Clearwater, Fla. 

She earned her B.S. in Microbiology and Cell Science from the University of Florida in 2003.  During her time as an undergraduate she worked in an Environmental Microbiology laboratory and her passion for water-quality microbiology was cultivated. She earned her Masters of Science in Microbiology and Cell Science in 2005. She then attended the University of South Florida where she developed a real-time PCR assay to detect human polyomaviruses in environmental waters as an indication of microbial water quality. In 2009, she earned her Ph.D. in biology with a concentration in environmental and ecological microbiology from the University of South Florida. 

After graduation, Ulrich joined the University of South Florida as a visiting instructor teaching cell biology and biology. In 2010, she accepted a position at St. Petersburg College teaching a variety of courses including biology, microbiology, genetics, immunology, molecular biology and undergraduate research. 

Ulrich has published 10 peer reviewed articles and a book chapter and continues her research interests working with undergraduate students.

Dr. Natividad Ruiz studied microbiology and chemistry at the University of Kansas, where she received her B.A. in 1993. She obtained her Ph.D. from Washington University in St. Louis in 1998 in Molecular Microbiology and Microbial Pathogenesis.

During her graduate thesis, Ruiz worked with Professor Michael Caparon on Streptococcus pyogenes. She then joined Professor Thomas J. Silhavy’s laboratory at Princeton University to study Escherichia coli as a postdoc and, later, a research scientist.

In 2010, Ruiz joined The Ohio State University, where she is currently a professor of microbiology. Her laboratory investigates the biogenesis of the cell envelope in gram-negative bacteria, primarily by using genetics to understand the mechanism of function of glycolipid transporters.

Dr. Trish Simner is an associate professor of pathology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the Director of the Medical Bacteriology and Infectious Disease Sequencing Laboratories at the Johns Hopkins Hospital.

Her research has focused on understanding the epidemiology and molecular mechanisms of antimicrobial resistance of gram-negative bacteria, in particular those harboring β-lactamase enzymes. Simner is interested in novel diagnostic tools for infectious diseases and is actively involved in developing metagenomic next-generation sequencing as a diagnostic tool.

Simner is a voting member on the Subcommittee on Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing for the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute. She is the Early Career At-Large representative for the American Society for Microbiology (ASM) Council on Microbial Science, a member of the College of American Pathologist Microbiology Committee and an editor for the Journal of Clinical Microbiology. 

Dr. Diana Vullo achieved her degree in Chemistry and her PhD in Biological Chemistry- Industrial Microbiology, both at the Faculty of Sciences, University of Buenos Aires, Argentina. As microbiologist, in 1999, she was involved with other eight colleagues in the foundation of the Environmental Chemistry Area of the recently created Universidad Nacional de General Sarmiento. Since then, she is Associate Professor of the institution and Independent Researcher of the National Scientific and Technical Research Council-Argentina. Her research projects are focused on Environmental Biotechnology to develop innovative and sustainable strategies mediated by native microorganisms to solve problems associated with productive processes in urban and periurban areas. The studies are aimed at microbe-metal interactions for the design of innovative biotreatments of electroplating wastewaters and the development of biofertilizers formulated with indigenous plant growth promoting bacteria and bacteriogenic metal nanoparticles applicable in the restoration of horticultural soils as substitutes for agrochemicals.

Dr. Vullo was member of the Executive Board of the Argentinean Society for General Microbiology (2014-2018) and co-founder of Argentinean Society for Environmental Science and Technology. Related to ASM, she served as Ambassador to Argentina (2012-2017), Chair and Past Chair, Ambassador Leadership Circle (2017-2019) and as mentor in Leadership Program for International Educators (2013-2017).
 

Diana Elizabeth Waturangi, Ph.D. is a professor in microbiology, with research interest emphasis in food microbiology, at Atma Jaya Catholic University in Jakarta, Indonesia. She was appointed as the ASM country ambassador for Indonesia in 2016 and was reappointed for a second term that will last until 2021.

During her appointment as ambassador, Waturangi has initiated a collaboration with 14 universities throughout Indonesia to organize a series of seminars and workshops focused on teaching microbiology, science communication and scientific writing. She has also led a collaborative project with ASM country ambassadors from the Philippines, El Salvador and Argentina to organize similar workshops and webinars. In 2018, Waturangi collaborated with ASM to display the Smithsonian's "Outbreak" exhibit at her institution.

Dr. Kristine Wylie is an assistant professor in the Department of Pediatrics at Washington University in St. Louis.

She studies the effects of the virome/microbiome on reproductive health. As a virologist, she is particularly interested in mechanisms underlying virus-host dynamics throughout the lifespan. Her work involves human studies carried out with clinical collaborators in addition to in vitro infection models, molecular biology and genomics/bioinformatics.

Wylie is passionate about education and outreach, and she is the co-PI of an NIH Science Education Partnership Award (SEPA) that aims to provide genomics/bioinformatics education and research opportunities to underserved high school students. She is an enthusiastic supporter of ASM and its promotion of innovative science, effective communication and mentored career development. 

Vanessa Sperandio is a professor in the departments of microbiology and biochemistry at UT Southwestern Medical Center. She got a B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. at the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP) in Brazil. She did her post-doctoral training at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. 

She was a Latin American Pew Fellow in Biomedical Sciences, an Ellison Foundation New Scholar, a Burroughs Wellcome Fund Investigator in the Pathogenesis of Infectious Diseases, and a National Academy Kavli Frontiers of Science Fellow. She is the recipient of the ASM Eli Lilly and Company-Elanco Research award, and a winner of the GSK Discovery Fast-track challenge. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology. 

Her research investigates chemical, stress, and nutritional signaling among the mammalian host, beneficial microbiota, and bacterial pathogens. The main tenet of her research is the study of how bacterial cells sense several mammalian hormones, leading to rewiring and reprogramming of bacterial transcription toward host and niche adaptation. She has also identified several bacterial receptors to mammalian hormones and reported that pathogens hijack these interkingdom signaling systems to promote virulence expression. She also translated these basic science concepts into strategies to develop novel approaches to antimicrobial therapy.

Dr. Melissa Miller is a professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill School of Medicine. She is also the Director of the Clinical Microbiology and Molecular Microbiology Laboratories for UNC Medical Center.

She received her Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from Princeton University and completed the Medical and Public Health Microbiology Fellowship at UNC. She is the chair of the American Society for Microbiology Clinical and Public Health Microbiology Committee, a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology and an editor for the Journal of Clinical Microbiology.

Miller’s research interests include the development of accurate and cost-effective molecular tests for viral infections and the assessment of patient and healthcare outcomes associated with the implementation of new molecular technologies. 
 

Tara C. Smith is a professor of epidemiology at the Kent State University College of Public Health. She spent 9 years in the Department of Epidemiology at the University of Iowa College of Public Health, where she directed the College’s Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases and attained the rank of Associate Professor with tenure. She completed post-doctoral training in molecular epidemiology at the University of Michigan, and obtained her Ph.D. at the University of Toledo and her B.S. in Biology from Yale University. 

Dr. Smith’s research generally focuses on zoonotic infections. She was the first to identify livestock-associated strains of MRSA in the United States, and has pioneered the investigation of this organism in the U.S.  She has presented her research at numerous national and international events. She has also published work on vaccine hesitancy, science communication, and COVID-19.

Smith is active in science communication and outreach. She maintained a science blog for 11 years and has written books on Group A Streptococcus, Group B Streptococcus, and Ebola. She published her second book on Ebola, "Ebola's Message," with MIT Press in 2016. She writes about infectious disease for many outlets, and is a member of the Zombie Research Society’s advisory board. 

Dr. Mary Sánchez Lanier, assistant vice provost at Washington State University (WSU) and professor (scholarly track) in molecular biosciences, has been in higher education over 29 years and is particularly active in the support of underrepresented minority students and women and minority faculty. She was PI or co-PI on NSF Advance and LSAMP grants and is currently a PI for an NIH ESTEEMED grant in support of STEM students from underrepresented groups.

She has received numerous awards including WSU’s highest award for leadership (Sahlin Faculty Excellence Award), the College of Veterinary Medicine Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching award, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Distinguished Service Award for her role in the Team Mentoring program and the global community for academic advising, NACADA, Outstanding Faculty Advisor award. Sánchez Lanier chaired the ASM Robert D. Watkins Predoctoral Minority Fellowship committee, the Minority Undergraduate Research Fellowship committee and the Committee for Minority Education. She is the ASM Education Board chair and represents ASM on the steering committee for the Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students (ABRCMS). Sánchez Lanier received her Ph.D. in medical sciences from the University of New Mexico School of Medicine. She was a research associate at the Centers for Disease Control before joining WSU.

Patrick Schloss's term as a Program Committee Chair runs through 2023. His complete biography will be posted on this page soon.

David Aronoff, M.D. received his B.S. in Microbiology (summa cum laude) from Indiana University and his M.D. from Tufts University. Following internship and residency training in internal medicine at Vanderbilt University, he completed both a clinical fellowship in infectious diseases and a research fellowship in clinical pharmacology. Aronoff then moved to the University of Michigan, where he completed a research postdoctoral fellowship in immunology.

Aronoff joined the faculty of the University of Michigan in 2002. He rose to the rank of Associate Professor with tenure in the Departments of Internal Medicine and Microbiology and Immunology, and in 2013 was recruited back to Vanderbilt University as Director of the Division of Infectious Diseases, with secondary faculty appointments in the Department of Pathology, Microbiology, and Immunology and the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, and the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Meharry Medical College.

Aronoff’s research focuses on bacterial infections that complicate pregnancy. He has also been on the frontlines of his institution’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Steven Specter is professor emeritus, Department of Molecular Medicine, University of South Florida, Morsani College of Medicine. He has a B.A. in Biology and Ph.D. in Microbiology and Immunology from Temple University, Philadelphia, PA. He was a post-doctoral fellow in Experimental Immunology, then Director of Clinical Virology at Albert Einstein Medical Center, Philadelphia. He was appointed Associate Dean for Pre-Clinical Education in 1997, Student Affairs in May, 2001-2014, Admissions in 2002-2008,  and Alumni Affairs 2014-201. He served as annual Clinical Virology Symposium Chair 1985-2020, Chair, Clinical Immunology Division of ASM, Editor-in-Chief, ASM Cumitech series, President, Pan American Society for Clinical Virology and President of Florida Branch ASM. 

He served on numerous journal editorial boards and professional councils. Research included retrovirus induced immune deficiency and effects of abused drugs on immunity. He authored over 175 scientific publications and edited 12 books. He received two outstanding teaching awards (1991, 1996) and the Theodore and Vanette Askonas-Ashford Distinguished Scholar Award, University of South Florida (1997). Dr. Specter received a CDC Grant as Principal Investigator for a project on Capacity Building Assistance for Global HIV/AIDS Microbiology Laboratory Program Development on behalf of ASM September 2005-2014. He is currently ASM Membership Chair.

Stacey Schultz-Cherry, Ph.D. is a Full Member (Professor) in the Department of Infectious Diseases at St Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, TN where she serves as the Deputy Director of the World Health Organization (WHO) Influenza Collaborating Center, Co-Director for the NIAID-funded Center for Excellence in Influenza Research and Surveillance (CEIRS) and Co-Director for the NIAID-funded Collaborative Influenza Vaccine Innovation Center (CIVIC). 

She received her Ph.D. in Molecular and Cellular Pathology from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and did postdoctoral training in influenza virology at the University of Wisconsin. Before joining the faculty at St Jude Children’s Research Hospital in 2009, she was a tenured Associate Professor in the Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. 

Dr. Schultz-Cherry is recognized internationally for her studies on the pathogenesis influenza and enteric viruses in high risk populations and influenza at the animal-human interface. She is the author and co-author of over 190 research articles, reviews and book chapters, is the past President of the American Society for Virology, and the current chair of the Public and Scientific Affairs Committee for ASM. 

Jack Brothers is the microbiology technical supervisor in charge of technical operations in microbiology, serology and the Homeland Defense Lab for the 673^rd Medical Group DOD/VA Joint Venture Hospital in Anchorage, Alaska, where he has been since June 2003. 

Throughout his career, Jack implemented improved procedures for the detection, reporting and tracking of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), resulting in a 60% reduction of MRSA over a 10-year period. He revised tuberculosis (TB) testing protocols to both reduce costs and improve turn-around times, as well as initiated in-house Gram stain challenges to improve tech training. In addition, he developed the Elmendorf Reportable Organism Database (ELROD) to improve epidemiology and infection control efforts and prepared the solutions for the first stool transplant ever performed at the Elmendorf Joint Venture Hospital.

Jack was selected as the 2007 Medical Support Squadron Category II Civilian of the Year and the USAF Laboratory Supervisory Level Civilian of the Year for 2010. Jack currently serves as councilor on ASM’s Council on Microbial Sciences (COMS) and served as a consultant for ASM’s lab capacity program from 2009-2011. Jack has been registered as a Medical Technologist with the American Society for Clinical Pathologists since 1976. He earned his B.A. in microbiology and botany at the University of Florida and his certification in medical technology from Midwestern State University.

Gail Rowe's term as a Branch Councilor runs through 2022. Her complete biography will be posted on this page soon.

Shazia Tabassum Hakim, Ph.D., SCCM(MLS), is a professor of Biomedical Sciences & Microbiology at Diné College, Ariz. (first tribally-owned college of North America in Navajo Nation). She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Karachi, Pakistan, trained in Dr. Raj Karim’s lab at the University of Minnesota-Duluth, and Dr. Rob Striker’s lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is a Registered Specialist Microbiologist with the Canadian College of Microbiologists. Hakim researched HCV antivirals using bovine viral diarrhea virus as surrogate model, along with genotyping and gene sequencing of HBV and HCV viruses, primate microRNAs in lentiviruses, retro elements and human endogenous retroviruses.

Before joining Diné College in 2018, she was Program Director of Allied Health Sciences, Canadian Academy of Health Professionals, Health Science Instructor at Oxford College, Ontario, Canada and Microbiology Professor, Chairperson and Dean of Sciences & Research at Jinnah University for Women, Karachi, Pakistan. Her research interest centers on infectious diseases: their sero-prevalence, transmission, prevention, drug design and evaluation of vaccines.

Hakim has been associated with ASM since 1995, first as a student, then an outreach member and now a contributing member. She joined ASM's Arizona/Nevada chapter in 2018. Her experience & qualifications blend working in both advanced and resource-limited settings.

Lisa Cuchara, Ph.D., is a professor at Quinnipiac University (QU), Conn. She has several research interests in the field of infectious diseases: vaccine hesitancy, vaccine-preventable diseases, the presence of antibiotic resistance genes in water, soil & food, the existence of antibiotic resistant bacteria on fomites in both the public & healthcare venues, MRSA, the colonization of bacterial species in healthy individuals, nosocomial infections, emerging diseases caused by antibiotic resistant bacteria and commensals & opportunistic bacteria. She has had over 160 QU undergraduate and grad students involved in research projects, and they have presented many research posters at scientific conferences.

She believes that the love of learning and "the big picture" are more important than just filling a student’s head with facts that are only retained until the exam takes place. Hence her teaching philosophy: "Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire." She believes that while everyone talks about IQ (and now EQ), CQ (curiosity quotient) and PQ (passion quotient) are equally important. Her philosophy is that learning is an active process involving an intellectual presence. She is passionate about creating "citizen scientists," incorporating it into all of her classes.

Andrea Furuya, Ph.D., earned her doctoral degree in Microbiology and Immunology from Albany Medical College. She then joined the Diagnostic Immunology Laboratory as a research scientist at the Wadsworth Center of the New York State Department of Health.

Her work focuses on clinical diagnostic testing and the development of serological assays to aid in the diagnosis of infectious agents, particularly vector-borne and vaccine preventable diseases, such as dengue, Zika, West Nile, Powassan and measles.

As part of her role in the clinical laboratory, she also evaluates serologic assays for the diagnosis of infections caused by viruses, such as SARS-CoV-2. In addition to her role in the public health setting, she also teaches immunology and public health microbiology to graduate and undergraduate students.  

Dr. Joe Zackular is an assistant professor in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, where he studied the role of the gut microbiota in colorectal cancer in the laboratory of Dr. Patrick Schloss. He joined the laboratory of Dr. Eric Skaar at Vanderbilt University Medical Center for his postdoctoral fellowship, where he studied the role of dietary metals and nutritional immunity in Clostridium difficile infection. In August of 2018, he started his laboratory in the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. The Zackular laboratory is focused on understanding how interactions between the host, gut microbiota and pathogenic microbes impact human health and disease. The labs recent efforts center on understanding how the important nosocomial pathogen, C. difficile, interacts with resident gut microbiota during infection and how interspecies cross-talk impacts growth, behavior and virulence of this pathogen. Research in the Zackular lab draws from a number of diverse fields including microbial ecology, bacterial pathogenesis, biochemistry, host-pathogen interactions and microbiota research.
 

Dr. Terri Ellis is a medical microbiologist and associate professor of biology at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville, Fla.

She received her bachelor’s degree from Duke University and her Ph.D. in 2004 from the University of California Davis under the mentorship of Blaine Beaman, investigating innate immune responses to Nocardia asteroides. She was a postdoctoral fellow at the NIH/NIEHS and Duke University where she studied outer membrane vesicles with Dr. Meta Kuehn.

The Ellis lab investigates how modifications to the outer surface components of Klebsiella pneumoniae, such as outer membrane vesicles, porins and polysaccharide capsule, contribute to virulence and antibiotic resistance. The Ellis lab utilizes a range of proteomic, biochemical, cell biology, genetic and immunology based techniques to investigate how small changes to the outer surface of these bacteria trigger larger downstream alterations in virulence. Incorporated into all investigations is student training.

Dr. Ellis has a particular interest in science pedagogy, student mentorship and undergraduate research opportunities. She has been a participant in both the the NSF CREATE and FIRST IV initiatives to improve science teaching and incorporate primary literature into undergraduate coursework. She is an active member of the leadership for the Florida Branch of ASM.

Michael Lieberman has a Ph.D. in microbiology from the University of Chicago, is a Diplomate of the American Board of Medical Laboratory Immunology (ABLMI) and a licensed Clinical Laboratory Director (state of Hawaii). He has done both research and clinical laboratory work for over 50 years and served as a U.S. Army Medical Service Corps officer for 20 years, where he was assigned to several military hospitals, before retiring in 1996.  

After retirement from the Army, Dr. Lieberman was employed as a research scientist at Hawaii Biotech, Inc. in Aiea, Hawaii, working on the development of vaccines against West Nile and dengue viruses. In 2007, he consulted for another local biotech company, as well as served as laboratory director for Aloha Toxicology Lab in Honolulu, until retiring yet again at the end of 2015.  

Currently, he is employed as an immunologist in the Department of Tropical Medicine, Medical Microbiology and Pharmacology and as laboratory director of the Tropical Medicine Clinical Laboratory in the John A. Burns School of Medicine at the University of Hawaii. He has been a member of ASM for 49 years, has attended many national annual meetings and was a participant in round tables and a convener of a symposium. He has also been a member of ASM’s Hawaii Branch for many years, where he is active in local branch meetings and has served as Secretary, Treasurer and Councilor.

Amanda Harrington, Ph.D., D(ABMM), is an associate professor and Vice Chair for Clinical Pathology in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Loyola University Chicago and Director of the Clinical Microbiology Laboratory at Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, Ill.

She earned her doctoral degree in microbiology from the University of Kansas, did her postdoctoral fellowship training in clinical microbiology at the University of Washington in Seattle and is a diplomate of the American Board of Medical Microbiology. She is currently serving as the President of the Illinois Society for Microbiology and the Community Leader for Clinical and Public Health Microbiology on the Council on Microbial Sciences for the American Society for Clinical Microbiology. She is also serving as the ASM Liaison to the American Society of Clinical Pathology Board of Governors. Her research interests include clinical diagnostic testing and utilization, as well as quality metrics for clinical microbiology.

Becky Sparks-Thissen's term as a Branch Councilor runs through 2022. Her complete biography will be posted on this page soon.

Catherine Loc-Carrillo is a research assistant professor at the University of Utah and an investigator at the Salt Lake City VA Health Care System. She works on translational research bridging the gap between bench and bedside healthcare. Her research interests fall within the fields of microbiology and infectious disease, with faculty appointments in the Departments of Internal Medicine, Pathology, and Surgery.
 
She obtained her BSc. in Biomedical Sciences from the University of Wales Institute Cardiff (1998); MSc. in Biotechnology from Nottingham Trent University (1999); and Ph.D. from the University of Nottingham, U.K (2005). Since her Ph.D., she has investigated the application of bacteriophages in the food and medical fields. She worked in biotech as a Lead Scientist for 3 years, then returned to academia in 2010 to teach research students how to become critical thinkers.
 
Nationally, she has been a member of the ASM Organization Committee for Student and Postdoc Membership (2012-2015); a scientific reviewer for the DOD; and serves as a reviewer for the NIH’s Exploration of Antimicrobial Therapeutics and Resistance study section. She is currently a review editor for Frontiers in Microbiology and reviews for a number of journals within the field of microbiology, including the ASM journals.

Ryan Doster, M.D., Ph.D. is an assistant professor in the Department of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn. He received his B.A. in Biology from Hanover College (Hanover, Ind.) and his M.D. from Indiana University. Following a combined residency in internal medicine and pediatrics at Indiana University, he completed a clinical fellowship in infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. During his clinical fellowship, Doster enrolled in the Physician Scientist Doctoral Program where he completed a Ph.D. in Microbe-Host Interactions.
 
His research interests include clinical infectious diseases, microbial pathogenesis with a focus on host-bacterial interactions and the influence of host metabolic state on bacterial pathogenesis. Doster’s research program focuses on mechanisms by which bacterial pathogens cause infections during pregnancy that lead to adverse pregnancy outcomes, including preterm birth and neonatal sepsis. His lab uses Group B Streptococcus as a model organism to understand how bacteria colonize epithelial borders within the female reproductive tract and alter host innate immune responses to cause ascending infection. He is interested in understanding how changes in host metabolic diseases, such as diabetes mellitus, might alter host-pathogen interactions and promote infectious outcomes.
 

Silvia Piñeiro received her Ph.D. from the University of Bahia Blanca, Argentina, and has held positions as a post-doctoral research associate, assistant professor, professor and senior scientific associate, at the University of Iowa, University of Buenos Aires, University of Salvador, and BioSidus, and University of Maryland. Since 2009, she holds a faculty visiting scientist position at the School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University. She is a senior regulatory review scientist in the area of microbial food safety, Division of Human Food Safety, CVM/FDA.  

Much of the work in Dr. Piñeiro’s division is on Agency policy development and national/international work on microbial resistance and microbiome issues. Her primary role is reviewing submissions towards the drug approval of new animal drugs from the perspective of the human intestinal microbiome (FDA/GFI#159) and antimicrobial resistance (FDA/GFI#152); also collaborates on research projects addressing regulatory questions and data gaps on antimicrobial resistance and the impact of residues on human intestinal microbiome.

Additionally, she has over 30 peer-reviewed research manuscripts, a book chapter, two patents, over 50 research abstracts, over 10 regulatory abstracts and 20 special invitations as speaker.  Since 2016, she has been appointed scientific expert member of the FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA).

Dr. Laura K. Harris is the Director of Training for the Institute for Cyber-Enabled Research at Michigan State University. She previously served as Assistant Professor and Science Laboratory Coordinator for Davenport University, and Founder and Principal Investigator of Harris Interdisciplinary Research.

Harris is an educator who enjoys developing curriculum that involves use of computational resources. She also enjoys conducting, and mentoring others in, data science and biomedical research. Her projects use bioinformatic and/or basic laboratory approaches to examine differential gene expression changes associated with antibiotic resistance in a variety of bacterial species, microbial-induced cancer and, more recently, SARS-CoV. 

Harris has received several honors for her leadership excellence, including LeadLikeAWoman by the Michigan Chamber of Commerce (2019) and honorary membership to the National Society of Leadership and Success, Sigma Alpha Pi (2018).

Harris is inspired daily by her husband and their two daughters. In her free time, she likes to train for half-marathons / sprint triathlons, help her daughters with extra-curricular school science projects, and play video games.
 

Melanie Mormile currently serves as the Associate Dean for Research and External Relations for the College of Arts, Sciences and Business at the Missouri University of Science and Technology (Missouri S&T). She is also a professor of biological sciences. She began her career at Missouri S&T in 1999 as an assistant professor. Prior to joining S&T, she did postdoctoral work for Drs. Jim Fredrickson and Brent Peyton at the Pacific Northwest National Lab. She holds a Ph.D. in microbiology from the University of Oklahoma.

At Missouri S&T, Mormile has published on many topics in environmental microbiology that span the fate of antibiotics in pig waste lagoons, identifying new species of halophilic bacteria, to possible industrial uses of halophiles. She holds 2 patents on biohydrogen production from cellulosic materials and 1 on the production of propanediol from waste glycerol, all under alkaline and saline conditions. In addition, Mormile has served as the main faculty advisor for the Mars Rover Design Team (MRDT) of Missouri S&T since its inception in 2012. Along with research, administration and advising MRDT, she also teaches courses that range from the Introduction to Biological Sciences (freshmen) to Bioremediation (graduate level).

Travis Bourret's term as a Branch Councilor runs through 2023. His complete biography will be posted on this page soon.

Esther Babady, Ph.D., D (ABMM), FIDSA, F(AAM) is the Director of the Clinical Microbiology Service, the Director of the CPEP Clinical Microbiology Fellowship program, an Attending Microbiologist and Member (Professor) in the Departments of Laboratory Medicine and Medicine at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) in New York City.

She received her Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and completed a postdoctoral CPEP fellowship in clinical microbiology, both at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., before joining MSKCC. She is board-certified by the American Board of Medical Microbiology, a fellow of the Infectious Disease Society of America and a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology.

She is a senior editor for Microbiology Spectrum and serves on the editorial boards of several journals. Her research interests include rapid diagnosis of infections in immunocompromised hosts, fungal diagnostics and the development and evaluation of the clinical utility of molecular microbiology assays. She has published extensively on these topics.

Dr. Erin Field is an assistant professor in the Department of Biology at East Carolina University (ECU). She received her Ph.D. in Microbiology at Montana State University in 2011 and held postdoctoral researcher positions at Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences and the University of Delaware before arriving in North Carolina in 2016. Her lab’s research primarily focuses on metal-microbe interactions in coastal environments and how these interactions affect larger processes, including biocorrosion of infrastructure and shipwrecks, contaminant mobility and metal cycling in the environment. She has published over 20 articles in this research area. Recently her lab’s work on the Pappy's Lane Shipwreck was featured on NPR’s Science Friday and in multiple online magazines, such as Popular Science and The Scientist. Field has a passion for student education and mentoring and in 2019, she was chosen as an American Society for Microbiology Undergraduate Research Fellow Mentor. Field currently teaches courses in Microbiology, Microbial Biotechnology and Advanced Sequencing Techniques at ECU, which incorporate course-based undergraduate research (CUREs).
 

Joy Scaria's term as a Branch Councilor runs through 2023. His complete biography will be posted on this page soon.

Frank J. Scarano's term as a Branch Councilor runs through 2022. His complete biography will be posted on this page soon.

Dr. Leigh Knodler obtained her Ph.D. from the University of New South Wales in Australia in 1995. Her thesis focused on novel metabolic pathways in the protozoan parasite, Giardia intestinalis.

From 1996-1999, she was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, San Diego studying gene regulation during the developmental cycle of G. intestinalis. In 1998, she saw Dr. Stanley Falkow give a seminar at a regional ASM meeting and it changed the course of her research career—Falkow’s seminar had introduced her to what was then the burgeoning field of cellular microbiology.

In 2000. she moved to Vancouver, Canada for a postdoctoral position in the laboratory of Dr. B. Brett Finlay, where she studied the pathogenesis of Salmonella enterica. She continued her studies on Salmonella-host cell interactions at the Rocky Mountain Laboratories, NIAID in Montana from 2002-2012, first as a research fellow and then as a staff scientist. Knodler was recruited to the Washington State University Paul G. Allen School for Global Animal Health as an assistant professor in October 2012 and received tenure and promotion in July 2019.

Laura Tuhela-Reuning's term as a Branch Councilor runs through 2023. Her complete biography will be posted on this page soon.

Jose Perez Jimenez's term as a Branch Councilor runs through 2024. His complete biography will be posted on this page soon.

Stephen Young's term as a Branch Councilor runs through 2022. His complete biography will be posted on this page soon.

Dan Wall is a professor in the Molecular Biology Department at the University of Wyoming. He received his bachelor’s degree in biology from the Sonoma State University, his doctoral degree from the University of Utah, and he conducted a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University. Prior to his current position he started in 2007, Wall worked on antibiotic drug discovery at San Diego biotechnology companies for eight years. Wall has played an active leadership role in the Rocky Mountain Branch of ASM for more than 10 years, including serving as Branch President.

Research in the Wall Lab focuses on how myxobacteria socially interact and transition to multicellularity by an aggregation strategy. Specifically, his group studies molecular mechanisms of kin recognition, social cooperation and how myxobacteria discriminate against non-kin cells.

Zaffar Hussain's term as a Branch Councilor runs through 2023. His complete biography will be posted on this page soon.

Michael G. Schmidt earned his Ph.D. from Indiana University, Bloomington, and rose through the ranks of The Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC), where he is presently professor of microbiology and immunology. He was elected to fellowship in the American Academy of Microbiology and the American College of Dentists. In 2017, he was selected as the South Carolina Governor’s Awardee for Excellence in Science and Scientific Awareness and, in 2019, he was elected as chair of the ASM Council on Microbial Sciences.

Currently, he is leading an inter-institutional-interdisciplinary team of professionals investigating the role that microbes in the built clinical environment serve in the acquisition of healthcare-associated infections (HAI). Building on the results of a successful multi-center clinical trial, where they established that by controlling the microbial burden in the built clinical environment, through the introduction of limited and targeted placement of copper alloys, a significant reduction (58%, p<0.0013) of HAI was achieved. The results from this study were the basis of a talk he provided to TEDxCharleston, and featured in articles in the Smithsonian Magazine and Vice.

Finally, he is a regular contributor to the internationally recognized podcast This Week In Microbiology (TWiM) and is the councilor to the South Carolina Branch of ASM.

Dr. Monica C. Gestal completed her Ph.D. in A Coruna, Spain, where she focused on determining the molecular mechanisms of antibiotic resistance in Enterobacteriaceae. Specifically, she investigated the epidemiological and molecular features of the CTX-M beta-lactamases critical for the extended spectrum activity. She then moved to Nottingham, U.K., supported by Fundacion Barrie de la Maza and an Intra-European Marie Curie award, where she examined the mechanisms of quorum sensing. Her project focused on understanding the changes in signaling molecules caused by a small RNA naturally transferred from Pseudomonas aeruginosa to Shinorhizobium meliloti. She also worked on identifying natural compounds that block quorum sensing in P. aeruginosa through suppression of virulence factors. Next, she moved to Ecuador where she worked in the National Reference Laboratory of Antibiotic Resistance and the Zurita&Zurita Laboratories where she continued working on mechanisms of antibiotic resistance. From Ecuador, she moved to the University of Georgia, Athens, where she developed expertise in animal models and immunology, before beginning her own laboratory as an Assistant Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in Shreveport. As a PI of her laboratory, she seeks to understand the molecular mechanisms by which Bordetella spp., the causative agent of whooping cough, manipulates host immune responses.
 

Laura Regassa's term as a Branch Councilor runs through 2023. Her complete biography will be posted on this page soon.

Heidi B. Kaplan, Ph.D., is associate professor of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics at McGovern Medical School, part of UTHealth, Houston. She received her Ph.D. in Microbiology at Cornell with E. Peter Greenberg, studying Vibrio fisheri autoinduction, which became known as quorum signaling. She completed her postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University with Dale Kaiser studying Myxococcus xanthus development.
 
Kaplan’s research focuses on the complex behavioral responses of bacterial communities to their changing environment. She has a special interest in the cell-cell communication of surface-attached communities, termed biofilms. Specifically, her group examines the physiology, interactions and dynamics orchestrating the developmental programs that control the initiation and dissolution of a variety of model biofilms.
 
Kaplan is excited to represent the Texas ASM Branch as their councilor. Her extensive involvement with the Texas Branch includes serving as President and Secretary. Kaplan has served ASM as chair of the ASM Distinguished Lecturer Committee and as a member of the Career Development Grants for Postdoctoral Women Committee. In addition, she is advisor to the very active Texas Medical Center ASM Graduate Student and Postdoc Chapter. Kaplan also served as chair of the ASM Conferences on Cell-Cell Communication in Bacteria and Prokaryotic Development.  
 

Jeffrey M. Boyd is an associate professor of Biochemistry and Microbiology at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey.
 
He grew up in the mid-west of the United States and received his B.S. in Microbiology, Immunology and Preventative Medicine from Iowa State University in 1999. He received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Utah State University in 2005. He then was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Wisconsin from 2005-2009 and University of Iowa during 2009-2010. He has been a faculty member at Rutgers University in the Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology since 2010. 
 
The Boyd lab studies the physiology of gram-positive bacteria, with a primary focus on the human pathogen Staphylococcus aureus. The group is particularly interested in examining metal ion homeostasis, including determining how iron-sulfur proteins are maturated, the mechanisms by which microbes protect themselves from toxic metal ions and how an intracellular imbalance of metal ions can cause toxicity. The group also studies the physiological changes that occur upon the transitions between respiratory and fermentative growth, including biofilm formation and toxin production. Their penultimate goal is the use the knowledge gained to decease the burden of pathogenic bacteria.
 

After obtaining her B.S. in chemistry and biology from Mississippi College and doing some post-graduate work, Temple took a hiatus from the academic science world at a time when “plasmid” was a little known term. When she returned a decade later to get an M.S. in biochemistry from Louisiana Tech University and a Ph.D. from Medical College of Virginia, the genetic revolution was in full swing. Postdoctoral work provided opportunities to work with Bordetella and bacteriophages; these research interests continue to the present. She taught for 10 years at Drew University, a small liberal arts college in New Jersey (1,400 undergraduates) and now for 15 years at James Madison University. Teaching microbiology, molecular biology and genomics, and partnering with students and peers in research has been a driving passion for her. She has also been involved in faculty mentoring and active in ASM for many years, and has a network of colleagues around the globe. 

Denise M. Akob, Ph.D. is a microbial ecologist and biogeochemist whose research aims to understand interactions between microbes and their environment in order to solve anthropogenic issues. She obtained her Ph.D. in Biogeochemical Oceanography from the Florida State University in 2008, and then was a Marie-Curie postdoctoral research fellow at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena from 2008-2012. Akob joined the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in 2012 as the head of the Reston Microbiology Laboratory, and moved to the Geology, Energy, and Minerals Science Center in 2020

Akob's research focuses primarily on understanding microbial impacts on Cold War Biogeochemistry (uranium and chlorinated solvent contamination); energy production (either by mitigating degradation of contaminants (from hydraulic fracturing or oil spills) or by enhancing natural gas production); and carbon cycling. She has published over 40 papers on uranium bioremediation, microbe-metal interactions, subsurface biodiversity, acetylenotrophy and environmental effects of oil and gas development.

Akob is an Associate Editor for Biogeosciences and serves on the editorial board of Applied and Environmental Microbiology and FEMS Microbiology Ecology. In addition, Akob is the Councilor of the Washington, D.C. Branch of ASM, and Vice-Chair of the 2021 Applied and Environmental Microbiology Gordon Research Conference. She received a USGS Early Career Leadership Award in 2017 for her outstanding service and scientific achievements in representing the agency.

Elaine Haase, Ph.D., began her career working as a clinical microbiologist performing bacteriology, mycology and parasitology assays. She went on to earn a M.S. degree in medical technology studying antibiotic resistance in Pseudomonas aeruginosa strains from cystic fibrosis patients. She continued in research, earning a Ph.D. in Microbiology and Immunology from the University at Buffalo (UB), focusing on the P2 porin protein of non-typeable Haemophilus influenzae from patients with otitis media. Through protein isolation by gel chromatography and the production of monoclonal antibodies, she was able to epitope map the P2 protein. She transitioned to the Department of Oral Biology in the School of Dental Medicine at UB, serving as a research scientist and lecturer.

One investigation focused on the identification, transcription and gene regulation of flp fimbriae from the periodontal pathogen Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans. Other research involved proteomic and transcriptomic studies of the interaction of commensal Streptococcus gordonii and its amylase-binding proteins with salivary proteins and other oral microbes. An understanding of the acquisition of these proteins among oral streptococcal strains has been gained through comparative genomics. Currently, she is working on the discovery of bacteriophages in oral microbes and their effect on oral ecology.

Dr. Maria Mojica is a microbiologist at Universidad El Bosque, Bogotá, Colombia. She has an M.S. in Biological Sciences from Universidad de Los Andes (Bogota, Colombia), with a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Case Western Reserve University.

She works as a postdoctoral scholar at Dr. Robert Bonomo’s lab. Dr. Mojica's research interests on antimicrobial resistance are focused on β-lactam resistance in Gram-negative bacilli, specifically mechanistic and structural–function relationship studies on metallo-β-lactamases (MBLs), development of MBL inhibitors, and Stenotrophomonas maltophilia. 

Dr. Paula Watnick is a senior associate physician in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Boston Children’s Hospital and an associate professor in the Department of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. She practices pediatric infectious diseases and studies intestinal pathogens and their interactions with the host intestine.

Watnick completed graduate work in the Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif., and subsequently attended Yale Medical School, did a residency in internal medicine at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston, and completed a clinical fellowship in infectious diseases at the Massachusetts General Hospital and a postdoctoral fellowship in bacterial genetics at Harvard Medical School.   

Watnick’s research interests currently include biofilm-based vaccines, metabolic control of bacterial transcription and the impact of commensal metabolites and pathogen quorum sensing on host innate immunity and metabolic homeostasis in model hosts. She is on the editorial board of Infection and Immunity, a fellow of the Infectious Diseases Society of America and a member of the American Academy of Microbiology.
 

Susan Butler-Wu's term as a Division Councilor runs through 2023. Her complete biography will be posted on this page soon.

Manuela Raffatellu is a Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine. She received her M.D. at the University of Sassari, Italy, in 2000, followed by postdoctoral training at Texas A&M University and at the University of California, Davis.  She started her own lab at the University of California, Irvine in 2008, where she was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 2014. She then relocated to the University of California, San Diego in 2017. Her research focuses on many aspects of Salmonella interaction with the mucosal immune response and with the intestinal microbiota in the inflamed gut. Her recent efforts aim to design strategies to reduce intestinal colonization of enteric pathogens without affecting the gut microbiota composition. She is the recipient of several awards, including the IDSA ERF/NFID Astellas Young Investigator Award, the ICAAC Young Investigator Award from the American Society for Microbiology and the Burroughs Wellcome Fund Investigator in the Pathogenesis of Infectious Disease Award. In 2019, she was elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation, and she became a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology. She serves as editor for Infection and Immunity. 

Sunny Shin, Ph.D. is an associate professor in the Department of Microbiology at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. Dr. Shin received her B.S. degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, her Ph.D. from Stanford University School of Medicine, and her postdoctoral training from Yale University School of Medicine.

Her research is focused on understanding mechanisms of immune defense against the bacterial pathogens Legionella pneumophila, Coxiella burnetii, and Salmonella Typhimurium and in turn, how these pathogens subvert host immunity. She has received several honors including the Burroughs-Wellcome Fund Investigator in the Pathogenesis of Infectious Diseases Award and the Penn Medicine Michael S. Brown New Investigator Award. She is highly committed to mentoring the next generation of scientists and promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion in academia and science, and she recently received the Penn Medicine Michael P. Nusbaum Graduate Student Mentoring Award.

Shin is vice-chair of the Cellular and Molecular Biology Graduate Group’s Microbiology, Virology, and Parasitology Program, directs or teaches graduate and medical courses, and mentors postdoctoral fellows, graduate students, and undergraduate students. She serves on the NIH Host Interactions with Bacterial Pathogens study section (2020-2024) and on the editorial board of Infection and Immunity.

Dr. Paul Fidel, Jr. received a B.S. in Biology from Allegheny College, Meadville, PA in 1984 and a Ph.D. in Microbiology from the University of Oklahoma in 1988. Following a 2-year postdoctoral fellowship at Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit, MI, Department of Immunology and Microbiology, he was appointed Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases in 1990. 

In 1995, Fidel went to Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in New Orleans as Associate Professor of Microbiology, Immunology, and Parasitology. After promotion to Professor in 1999, he was named holder of the Carl Baldridge Endowed Chair in Oral and Craniofacial Biology and appointed the Director of the Center of Excellence in Oral and Craniofacial Biology in 2001. He has authored ~200 publications and has been continuously funded by extramural sources, primarily NIH, since 1994. He was inducted into the American Academy of Microbiology in 2018. 

Fidel’s research has impacted the fields of medical mycology and infectious disease. Pioneering studies using novel mouse models and clinical studies have defined unique paradigm-changing aspects of host-pathogen interactions in mucosal candidiasis. Most recently, he is conducting clinical trials evaluating live attenuated vaccines (MMR) to mitigate COVID-related sepsis.

Thirumalai R. Kannan, Ph.D. is an associate professor in the Department of Microbiology, Immunology & Molecular Genetics at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.

Kannan’s research mainly focuses on the complex interaction between bacterial pathogens and host cells. His laboratory studies the pathogenesis of two important human pathogens, Mycoplasma pneumoniae and Mycoplasma genitalium. Despite their very small genomes Mycoplasmas have developed unique ways to interact with their hosts. During their co-evolutionary balance mycoplasmas have evolved an array of virulence factors well suited to counteract a variety of host-cell responses in order to adhere/invade, survive and replicate within their hosts. His research focuses on identifying and characterizing the mycoplasma virulence determinants involved in these interactions as well as the molecular, cellular and immunobiology of these processes. The approaches comprise bacterial genetics, biochemistry, molecular biology, cell biology, animal models and imaging.

Specific areas of interest include:

- Study the mechanism of pathogenesis of M. pneumoniae through "Community acquired respiratory distress syndrome (CARDS) toxin," a toxin exclusively produced by M. pneumoniae.

- Study the mechanisms by which M. genitalium adheres, internalizes and survives within host cells. In particular, understanding how this bacterium exploits host-cell machinery to gain access to the cell.
 

Dr. Gisela Storz is an NIH Distinguished Investigator in the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

She received a B.A. in Biochemistry from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1984 and a Ph.D. in Biochemistry in 1988 from the University of California at Berkeley, where she worked with Bruce Ames. After postdoctoral fellowships with Sankar Adhya at the National Cancer Institute and Fred Ausubel at Harvard Medical School, she became an investigator at NIH in 1991.

Storz's group has worked on the sensing of oxidative stress and the roles of regulatory RNAs and small proteins in bacteria. Mentoring is very important to Storz, and she and members of her group have received multiple mentoring awards. Additionally, she proposed and is former chair of the NIH Equity Committee.

Dr. Kyle MacLea is an associate professor of biological sciences and biotechnology at the University of New Hampshire (UNH). He is the program coordinator for undergraduate and graduate biosciences on the Manchester campus of UNH and teaches courses in microbiology and molecular biology.

MacLea's research work spans the microbial sciences, from the genomics of bacteria, archaea and bacteriophages, to the molecular and cellular biology of prions in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. In science education, his focus is on educating the next generation of biologists and microbiologists, with a particular focus on teaching students to communicate their science with the general public.

He holds an A.B. in Biology from Cornell University and a Ph.D. in Pharmacology/Toxicology from Dartmouth College. 

Dr. Prahathees Eswara grew up in India with a fascination for science. He received his B.S. in Applied Sciences from Periyar University in India and became a first-generation college graduate. Because of his persistent interest in biology and computer programming, he obtained a M.S. in bioinformatics from the same university. During this time, he gained experience in structural biology at Madras University, All India Institute of Medical Sciences and the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, which motivated him to pursue a career in research.

Dr. Eswara earned his Ph.D. in Biochemistry at the University of Houston. His dissertation research focused on sporulation initiation pathways in Bacillus subtilis. Dr. Eswara then joined the National Institutes of Health (NIH) at Bethesda, Md. for his postdoctoral research, where he applied advanced, super-resolution microscopy techniques to understand how bacterial cells divide. Subsequently, he accepted a faculty position at the University of South Florida.

In addition to studying diverse processes in B. subtilis, Dr. Eswara expanded his research program to include Staphylococcus aureus cell division and antibiotic resistance mechanisms. The projects in his lab are funded by the 5-year NIH R35 Outstanding Investigator Award.

Cecilia Martinez-Gomez's term as a Division Councilor runs through 2024. Her complete biography will be posted on this page soon.

Dr. Ostrowsky is currently a field medical officer at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Division of Quality Healthcare Promotion (CDC, DHQP) in New York. She works closely with NYSDOH, other public health, facility and professional groups on Healthcare Associated infections (HAI), Antimicrobial Resistance (AR) and Antimicrobial Stewardship Program (ASP) topics, including C. auris, multi-drug resistant gram negatives and most recently COVID-19. She formerly was the Director of Epidemiology, Stewardship, and Infection Prevention at Montefiore/ Einstein, Bronx, N.Y. and remains an Associate Professional at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Dr. Ostrowsky has worked locally in the N.Y. area and nationally on a series of ASP and HAI collaboratives. This included being the co-lead context expert for the United Hospital Fund (UHF) Outpatient Stewardship Initiatives for Acute Respiratory Infections and a series of collaboratives on C. difficile and ASP (with Greater NY Hospital Association (GNYHA)]. She is a fellow of the Infectious Disease Society of American (IDSA) and the Society for Health Care Epidemiologist of America (SHEA).  She was the chair of the SHEA Annual Spring Meeting in 2017 and is the current chair of the SHEA Education Committee.  She’s a current member of the IDweek Program Committee.

Jason Gill's term as a Division Councilor runs through 2022. His complete biography will be posted on this page soon.

Alison Buchan, Ph.D. is a marine microbial ecologist studying the interactions heterotrophic marine bacteria have with one another; other members of the microbial community; phytoplankton; living and detrital organic matter; and the viruses (phages) that infect them. Her lab uses representatives of the environmentally relevant Roseobacter group of marine bacteria to uncover the molecular mechanisms that underlie these diverse interactions. She received her B.Sc. in Biology from James Madison University in 1994. She received both a M.Sc. in Microbiology with Robert Hodson (1997) and Ph.D. in Marine Sciences under the advisement of Mary Ann Moran (2001) from the University of Georgia. Her doctoral work elucidated the pathways utilized by Roseobacters to degrade plant-related aromatic compounds. Buchan was awarded an NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Microbial Ecology to work with Nicholas Ornston at Yale University. During her time there, she investigated aromatic compound transporters in the soil bacterium, Acinetobacter. She joined the University of Tennessee in 2005, where she is now the Carolyn Fite Professor and Associate Head of Microbiology.

Thaddeus Ezeji received his Ph.D. (Magna cum laude) in microbiology from University of Rostock, Germany. His 6 years post-doctoral and research assistant professor efforts at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, focused on fermentation technologies and metabolic engineering of solventogenic (butanologenic) Clostridium species.

In 2007, Dr. Ezeji joined the Animal Science Department at The Ohio State University (OSU) and Ohio State Agricultural and Development Center, where he holds a professor position. Dr. Ezeji’s current research focuses on development of non-food substrates to produce fuels and chemicals, and design of advanced fermentation systems. Additionally, Dr. Ezeji’s laboratory conducts research activities on probiotics, metabolomics, genetic and metabolic engineering of bacteria of biotechnological significance. In collaboration with several OSU faculty staff, Dr. Ezeji is involved in outreach programs that address emerging issues from Ohio’s expanding bioenergy sector. He has published more than 74 scientific papers, 16 book chapters, co-edited three books, and serves as associate editor for two international journals.

Donna Scholer is the Chief Operating Officer at Microbiologics. During her 39-year tenure at Microbiologics, Scholer has helped transition the company from a small, localized medical device and testing company to a global leader in the production of biomaterials for quality control. Having gone from the laboratory to the office, Scholer has gained great insight into the workings of all sides of the business. The manufacturing of microorganisms is a unique and challenging opportunity to bring science and manufacturing under one umbrella.

Scholer has a passion for food safety and was published in International Food Hygiene and lobbied in Washington for the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA). She has also been an Investment Team Volunteer for the United Way of Central Minnesota’s Access to Food.

She currently sits on the St. Cloud State University (SCSU) Biological Sciences Advisory Board and helps to mentor many young scientists through their careers. She is also a member of the Diversity and Inclusion Affinity Group at Granite Partners.

Scholer attended St. Cloud State University and received the 2018 Executive Cornerstone Award from Granite Partners.
 

Biography coming soon.

Vaughn Cooper is an evolutionary biologist and microbiologist. He received his bachelor’s degree from Amherst College and his Ph.D. in 2000 from Michigan State University under the mentorship of Richard Lenski, where he studied the evolution of specialization in the Long-Term Evolution Experiment of E. coli populations.

He was a Postdoctoral Fellow of the Michigan Society of Fellows at the University of Michigan, studying pathogens of the cystic fibrosis airway with John LiPuma. He was Assistant and Associate Professor at the University of New Hampshire from 2004-2015, moving to the University of Pittsburgh in 2015, where he is Professor of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, and Computational and Systems Biology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

Dr. Cooper co-founded and is Director of the Center for Evolutionary Biology and Medicine (CEBaM) and founded and directs the Microbial Genomics Sequencing center (MiGS).

His awards include the 2010 Outstanding Assistant Professor at UNH and an NSF CAREER award. His research is supported by the NIH, NSF, NASA, and by the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.

Dr. Cooper has published more than 70 peer-reviewed publications and invited chapters, and currently is supported by 12 active grants or contracts. The Cooper laboratory studies how bacterial populations (e.g. Burkholderia, Pseudomonas, Acinetobacter, and multispecies communities) evolve to adapt to new hosts and environments, particularly in biofilms. Other major interests include the evolution of antimicrobial resistance and why genome regions mutate/evolve at different rates. The laboratory also develops and promotes a laboratory curriculum called EvolvingSTEM, which enables high school students to learn key topics in evolution and heredity by conducting a week-long experiment with bacteria.

Biography coming soon.

Pranav Danthi received his Ph.D. in Microbiology and Immunology from the University of Arkansas, focused on medical sciences investigating poliovirus biology. After completing his postdoctoral training at Vanderbilt University, he started as an assistant professor in the Department of Biology at Indiana University in 2008. He was tenured and promoted to associate professor in 2016.

Dr. Danthi's laboratory performs structure-function studies of mammalian reovirus as a model to understand how non-enveloped viruses overcome the host membrane barrier to launch infection. The Danthi laboratory also investigates mechanisms by which interactions between viral components and host molecules results in the induction of cell death. He is a former Chair of the American Society of Virology Membership Review Committee. He currently serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Virology.

Dr. Sloan Siegrist is an assistant professor of microbiology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. After growing up on Guam, she received a B.A. in Human Biology at Stanford University. Her Ph.D. work with Dr. Eric Rubin, Harvard School of Public Health, focused on mycobacterial genetics and her postdoctoral research with Dr. Carolyn Bertozzi, then at University of California Berkeley, centered on chemical probes for cell wall peptidoglycan. At UMass Amherst, the Siegrist group studies the organization of the (myco)bacterial cell envelope and engineers its components for translational applications.

Elitza (Elli) S. Theel, Ph.D., is Director of the Infectious Diseases Serology Laboratory and Co-Director of the Vector-Borne Diseases Service Line at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. She is Associate Professor of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology at Mayo Clinic, and is the program director for the Clinical Microbiology CPEP progam.

Theel received her Ph.D. in Medical Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and subsequently completed a clinical microbiology fellowship at Mayo Clinic. She is certified by the American Board of Medical Microbiology. She is a member of the editorial board for multiple journals, including the Journal of Clinical Microbiology and Clinical Infectious Diseases. Theel serves on the CAP Microbiology Resource Committee and the APHL/CDC working group for standardization of reporting language for Lyme disease serologic testing. 

Her research interests revolve around the evaluation and development of serologic assays for vector-borne diseases and fungal pathogens. Finally, she also spearheads a philanthropic, international laboratory outreach initiative in Belize, focused on increasing the in-country testing capacity for vector-borne diseases, establishing seroprevalence rates for these pathogens and enhancing the quality assurance/quality control practices in clinical laboratories throughout the country.

Jennifer A. Herzog is an associate professor of Biology at Herkimer College, where she has taught for nearly 20 years. Herzog has a strong interest in developing novel teaching strategies for science education and have developed programs for K-career microbiology education. Distance learning has afforded her the opportunity to develop many innovative ways to convey biological concepts and techniques online. She has two Master's degrees from Yale University.

George Sprague is professor emeritus in the Department of Biology at the University of Oregon. His research interests center on transcription regulation and signal transduction in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. He served as Head of the Department of Biology for 10 years.

He is a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He served on the Board of Governors of the American Academy of Microbiology and the Board of Directors of the Genetics Society of America. He served as editor of Molecular and Cellular Biology and was on the editorial board of Cell.  He was chair of the American Cancer Society advisory panel on Virology and Molecular Genetics and was a longstanding member of the NIH Cell and Development fellowship panel.

He served as councilor for the ASM Division on Molecular, Cellular, and General Biology of Eukaryotes and is currently Division X representative on the ASM Council.

Marie-Claire Rowlinson, Ph.D., D(ABMM) received her undergraduate and doctoral degrees in Medical Microbiology in the U.K. and then completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Medical and Public Health Laboratory Microbiology at University of California, Los Angeles. Following the fellowship,  Rowlinson worked with the Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL) in their Global Health program, building laboratory capacity in countries around the globe. Since 2012, she has been at the Florida Department of Health, Bureau of Public Health Laboratories in Jacksonville as the Assistant Laboratory Director and CLIA Laboratory Director. Additionally, Rowlinson holds an Adjunct Assistant Professor position in the Department of Medicine, Emerging Pathogens Institute at University of Florida in Gainesville.

Rowlinson participates in organizational work. She is the Chair of the APHL Infectious Diseases Committee and a member of the APHL TB Subcommittee. She also continues to work with APHL on an international level, consulting with the Global Health program, most recently working with the Ukraine Ministry of Health. Rowlinson is the American Society for Microbiology Division Y (Public Health) Chair and is a member of the College of American Pathologists Microbiology Committee.

Bradley Bearson, Ph.D., is a research microbiologist at the USDA, ARS, National Laboratory for Agriculture and the Environment (NLAE) in Ames, Iowa. He earned his Ph.D. at the University of South Alabama College of Medicine investigating the acid tolerance response of Salmonella Typhimurium in the laboratory of John W. Foster, Ph.D. He performed a Clinical Microbiology Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of California at Los Angeles Medical Center. Dr. Bearson represents the ASM Division Animal Health (Z).

Bearson investigates pathogenesis and colonization of Salmonella, including multi-drug resistant (MDR) isolates in swine and turkeys, to identify, improve and/or develop novel approaches of pathogen control for animal production. His research focus includes the development and evaluation of an attenuated Salmonella DIVA (differentiation of infected from vaccinated animals) vaccine strain and determination of whether vaccination confers protective immunity against virulent Salmonella colonization and pathogenesis in swine and turkeys. Dietary modifications and biotherapeutics are investigated to determine the ability of these interventions to reduce and/or prevent intestinal colonization by Salmonella. Bearson also characterizes the selective pressure of antibiotic exposure on MDR Salmonella for enhanced colonization fitness, horizontal gene transfer and environmental persistence.

Zhicheng Dou is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Clemson University in Clemson, S.C. He received his Bachelor's degree in Life Sciences with an emphasis on Biochemistry at Fudan University located in Shanghai, China, in 2002. He was awarded a Ph.D. degree in Biochemistry from the University of Southern Mississippi in 2009.

His graduate work focuses on understanding the CO2 fixation by a primitive organelle termed carboxysome in a sulfur-oxidizing bacterium, Halothiobacillus neapolitanus. He switched his research emphasis from environmental microbiology to parasite pathogenesis during his postdoctoral training at the Carruthers' lab in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Michigan (2009 – 2015). He studied the proteolytic mechanism of Toxoplasma gondii infection in mammalian cells. He moved to Clemson University in August 2015 and accepted a tenure-track Assistant Professor position in the Department of Biological Sciences.

His current research studies nutrient acquisition and utilization in Toxoplasma parasites. Please refer to his lab website www.thedoulab.com for more information and connect with him via his Twitter account at @bigbean777.

Mary Ann Bruns is Professor of Soil Microbiology in the Department of Ecosystem Science and Management at The Pennsylvania State University. Bruns teaches and conducts research in environmental microbiology and is on the Executive Committee of Penn State’s Microbiome Center. She received a BA in Microbiology and MS in Food Science & Technology from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and PhD in Crop and Soil Sciences from Michigan State University with graduate training in the Center for Microbial Ecology. Her research investigates how land use and management affect soil and root microbiomes and soil functionality for ecosystem service delivery. Bruns served twice as President of the Allegheny Branch of ASM. As an ASM International Fellow in 2009 she conducted a molecular microbiology teaching workshop at Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria, Nigeria, and received an ASM Outstanding Service Award from the International Board. Bruns has interest in innovative microbiology training for undergraduates across disciplines to promote broader technical employment opportunities.

Maria Gloria Dominguez-Bello received her Ph.D. from University of Aberdeen, Scotland, and is currently the Henry Rutgers Professor of Microbiome and Health at Rutgers University, and the Director of the New Jersey Institute for Food Nutrition and Health. She is fellow at the American Academy of Microbiology, and at IDSA, belongs to the editorial board of several scientific journals. Her current lab focus uses multidisciplinary approaches to study impacts of modern practices on the microbiome and strategies for restoration.

She works on gradients of urbanization in South America, through global synergistic collaborations with scientists in Chile, Venezuela, Bolivia, Peru, Brazil, Tanzania, Spain, Belgium, Hong Kong and the US. She has over 140 publications on microbial ecology, and her current interest is on gradients of urbanization and the role of microbiota impacts on modern chronic diseases. She is leading the global initiative of the Microbiota Vault, to preserve the diversity of the microbes relevant to human health. 

Peter Girguis is a professor of organismic and evolutionary biology at Harvard University. His research focuses on understanding the physiological and biochemical adaptation of microbes and animals to "extreme environments." He is renowned for building novel instruments and sensors, such as underwater mass spectrometers and microscale microbial samplers.

Dr. Girguis received his B.S. from the University of California, Los Angeles; his Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Barbara; and completed postdoctoral research at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute prior to joining Harvard University. He was a Distinguished Lecturer for the National Science Foundation, a Merck Co. Innovative Research Awardee and a Department of Energy E.C.-U.S. Biotechnology Fellow. Dr. Girguis has authored or co-authored over 95 publications, served as Chair of the National Deep Submergence Science Committee (2010-2016) and serves as a member of several notable ocean advisory boards, including the Ocean Exploration Trust.

Girguis’ honors include the 2007 and 2011 Lindbergh Foundation Award for Science & Sustainability, the 2018 Lowell Thomas Award for groundbreaking advances in Marine Science and Technology and the 2020 Petra Shattuck Award for Distinguished Teaching. He was named a Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation Investigator for his research on marine symbioses.

Dr. Joanna B. Goldberg is a Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at Emory University School of Medicine and holds a secondary appointment in the Department of Microbiology & Immunology. She was awarded the 2012 ASM Graduate Microbiology Teaching Award. Prior to joining Emory, she was a Professor in the Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Cancer Biology at the University of Virginia, and at the Channing Laboratory, Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Department of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. She received her B.A. in Biology from Boston University and Ph.D. in Microbiology & Immunology from the University of California at Berkeley.

Goldberg has had continuous NIH funding for research on bacterial pathogens associated with life-threatening lung infections in individuals living with cystic fibrosis, particularly Pseudomonas aeruginosa. She studies the synthesis and regulation of surface antigens, including polysaccharides and protein adhesins, their role in infection and as potential antimicrobial and vaccine targets.

She was awarded the ASM Raymond W. Sarber Fellowship Award as a graduate student. As examples of her ASM involvement, she was Chair of Division D, Councilor for Division B, Chair of the ASM Career Development Committee, Chair of the ASM Conferences Committee and President of the Virginia Branch.

Erin Lipp, Ph.D. is Professor of Environmental Health Science at the University of Georgia, where she has served on the faculty since 2002. She received her Ph.D. in Marine Science from the University of South Florida and her bachelor’s degree from New College of Florida. 

Lipp has maintained an active research program on the intersecting roles of water, climate and environmental change on the microbial ecology of pathogens. She has worked with both national and international agencies on the effects of climate change on human health, with an emphasis on water and foodborne diseases.

Between 2007 and 2012, she co-directed a doctoral training program on Oceans and Human Health. She was a contributing author on the Health Chapter for the IPCC Working Group II Fifth Assessment Report and the 2016 USGCRP Climate & Health Assessment. She was elected as fellow in the American Academy of Microbiology in 2016. 

Dr. Joy Sturtevant has 30 years of experience in the academic and scientific fields. She completed her Ph.D. studies at Duke University from the Department of Microbiology and Immunology. Her professional life began with postdoctoral fellowships in Scotland, Sweden, and the Pasteur Institute, France and advancement at Georgetown University. She has been a faculty member in the Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Parasitology at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center New Orleans for 18 years. Her research has focused on the initial interaction between host and pathogen including parasites, fungi and bacteria.
 
Sturtevant's scientific background has been a multidisciplinary approach, focusing on the basic microbiological and immunological medical sciences but incorporating biochemistry, cell biology, genetics and molecular biology. She has worked with and teaches about fungi, bacteria and parasites. Therefore, her interest in ASM is broad-based and not discipline focused.
 
Recently Sturtevant's work life made a significant switch to a focus on education. For the past 3 years, she is also Co-Director of the Basic Science Curriculum in the Office of Medical Education. She believes that education should continue to be a significant focus of ASM.

Vincent Young is the William Henry Fitzbutler Collegiate Professor in Internal Medicine/Infectious Diseases Division and Microbiology & Immunology at the University of Michigan Medical School. He received his undergraduate degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1985 and received his M.D. and Ph.D. in Microbiology & Immunology from Stanford University 1992. He completed clinical training in Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases at the Massachusetts General Hospital. After an initial faculty position at Michigan State University he joined the University of Michigan in 2007.

Dr. Young has a long-standing interest in the pathogenesis of bacterial infections of the gastrointestinal tract and the role of the normal microbiota in human health and disease. As part of the NIH Human Microbiome Project, Young led a team that studied the role of the microbiome in inflammatory bowel disease. Current research in the Young Lab includes a "team science" effort to understand the pathogenesis Clostridium difficile infection by an integrated approach combining clinical research, bacterial genomics, microbial ecology and immunology/host response projects. He is also leading a group of investigators that is developing the use of stem cell-derived intestinal organoids as a novel alternative model system for the study of enteric disease agents.