Masters’ Students:
Taylor Ranson
Taylor is investigating the impact of three central metabolism mutations of E. coli on their ability to form biofilms. She is also helping in the sequencing of E. coli and P. aeruginosa strains from our recent spaceflight experiment and will be doing microscopy for our upcoming reflight of the biofilm spaceflight experiment due to launch in 2023. This picture shows Taylor loading a nanopore sequencer at NASA.
Evan Ortiz
Evan is working on a joint collaborative study with Jelena Tesic in computer science to develop a program to analyze microscopy images of microbial induced corrosion from our recent spaceflight experiment. Evan (second from left in this picture by NASA Mission Control in Houston) is shown along with microbiologists from the DLR, NASA-JSC, and Georgia Tech. This is another exciting interdisciplinary project as it involves coding and machine learning.
Amber Busboom
Amber just joined the lab and will be working with Taylor and Regan to design a PCR protocol to identify and monitor individual members of a five-species microbial population that is commonly isolated from the water recovery system in the international space station.
Undergraduate Students:
Regan Daly
Regan recently joined the lab and will be helping Amber and Taylor to develop a PCR protocol to monitor bacterial population changes during disinfection in a model microbial biofilm community associated with the water recovery system on the International Space Station.
Cherie Maharaj
Cherie just joined the lab and will be investigating the effect of short chain fatty acids on the culture interactions of Enterococcus faecalis and E. coli in biofilms.
Addy Hobson
Addy just joined the lab and will be investigating the potential of bacteriophage (bacterial virus) to control a UTI strain of E. coli in a biofilm.