Graduate Students

Samantha’s research is leveraging computational and modeling tools for the development of intervention strategies to mitigate microbial food safety hazards in pre-harvest and post-harvest environments.

Catharine is evaluating the performance of AOAC approved rapid Salmonella detection kits under challenging conditions. Additionally, she is also looking at the growth characteristics of all Listeria, including newly classified species, in standard reference method culture medias. 

Ruixi is investigating the effect of pre-growth condition and genetic variation of Listeria monocytogenes on the antimicrobial activity of nisin in cold-smoked salmon. He is also working on the validation of such effects at low inoculum levels, and the identification of L. monocytogenes genes important for resistance to nisin and survival in cold-smoked salmon.

Alexa is working on a project to analyze the transcriptome of three different serovars of nontyphoidal Salmonella in order to understand strains in the context of infectivity and host interactions.

Samantha's research focuses on improving the quality of products in the dairy industry, specifically by developing probabilistic modeling tools to describe the microbial dynamics of bacteria associated with post pasteurization contamination in fluid milk.

Tim is investigating the effectiveness of on-farm interventions for reducing spore forming bacteria in bulk tank raw milk. He is also evaluating the efficacy of different pasteurization parameters and storage temperatures for extending the shelf-life of fluid milk in absence of post-pasteurization contamination.

Luke's research focuses on developing prediction models to assess risk in food products and guide better risk management decisions. 

Anna is working with the foodborne pathogen Listeria monocytogenes and is interested in characterizing how the bacterium regulates its gene expression in response to different environmental conditions. She is currently working on characterizing genes that could be involved in L. monocytogenes’ virulence.

Brad’s research interests include but not limit to characterization of resistomes in different livestock production systems using next generation sequencing.