Events will be hosted January – December in 2026, on the last Wednesday of every month, 11:00 – 13:00 pm ET. Presented over Zoom.

After each talk, we will continue the discussions in an informal social meeting with MSE. All speakers and members of the audience are welcome to join the social meeting.

Hosted by: Sue Ishaq, MSE, and finacially supported by the University of Maine Institute of Medicine, and the Applied Microbiology International via the 2025 Dororthy Jones Diversity and Inclusion Acheivement Award.

New this year: the live session will be available free, but the on-demand video-recording will only be available to MSE members for the first year (and available to the public afterwards).

Summary: 

Microorganisms are critical to many aspects of biological life, including human health.  The human body is a veritable universe for microorganisms: some pass through but once, some are frequent tourists, and some spend their entire existence in the confines of our body tissues.  The collective microbial community, our microbiome, can be impacted by the details of our lifestyle, including diet, hygiene, health status, and more, but many are driven by social, economic we, medical, or political constraints that restrict available choices that may impact our health.   Access to resources is the basis for creating and resolving social equity—access to healthcare, healthy foods, a suitable living environment, and to beneficial microorganisms, but also access to personal and occupational protection to avoid exposure to infectious disease. This speaker series explores the way that microbes connect public policy, social disparities, and human health, as well as the ongoing research, education, policy, and innovation in this field. 

You can find recordings from previous series here.

“The Secret World Within: How the Microbiome Provides Insight into Gynecologic Health”

Dr. Nicole Jimenez, PhD

Aug 26, 2026, 11:00 – 13:00 EDT. The recording will be available online here after the event.

Dr. Nicole Jimenez is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Arizona College of Medicine-Phoenix, specializing in gynecologic health research. Raised in Arizona, she was inspired by mentors in programs such as the Si Se Puede Foundation and ASU’s Los Diablos, and by her innate curiosity, to pursue a career as a scientist. She completed her doctoral degree in 2021 from Virginia Commonwealth University as part of the Vaginal Microbiome Consortium, studying the microbiome in the context of bacterial vaginosis, trichomoniasis, and pregnancy. Currently, her postdoctoral research, conducted in Dr. Melissa Herbst-Kralovetz’s lab, focuses on conditions such as chronic pelvic pain, endometriosis, adenomyosis, cervical and endometrial cancer, utilizing multi-omic pipelines, microbial culturomics, and 3D epithelial cell models. Dr. Jimenez has demonstrated a strong commitment to academic excellence, evidenced by recently securing the American Cancer Society postdoctoral fellowship, publishing manuscripts in microbiology and clinically focused journals, and receiving the 2025 University of Arizona Outstanding Postdoctoral Scholar Award. Driven by her passions for science, advocacy, and mentorship—having guided 22 students across various levels—she is actively preparing for a transition to an independent faculty position to continue her translational work on understudied gynecologic conditions through the lens of the microbiome. A recent article can be found here.

Events will be hosted January – December in 2026, on the last Wednesday of every month, 11:00 – 13:00 pm ET. Presented over Zoom.

After each talk, we will continue the discussions in an informal social meeting with MSE. All speakers and members of the audience are welcome to join the social meeting.

Hosted by: Sue Ishaq, MSE, and finacially supported by the University of Maine Institute of Medicine, and the Applied Microbiology International via the 2025 Dororthy Jones Diversity and Inclusion Acheivement Award.

New this year: the live session will be available free, but the on-demand video-recording will only be available to MSE members for the first year (and available to the public afterwards).

Summary: 

Microorganisms are critical to many aspects of biological life, including human health.  The human body is a veritable universe for microorganisms: some pass through but once, some are frequent tourists, and some spend their entire existence in the confines of our body tissues.  The collective microbial community, our microbiome, can be impacted by the details of our lifestyle, including diet, hygiene, health status, and more, but many are driven by social, economic we, medical, or political constraints that restrict available choices that may impact our health.   Access to resources is the basis for creating and resolving social equity—access to healthcare, healthy foods, a suitable living environment, and to beneficial microorganisms, but also access to personal and occupational protection to avoid exposure to infectious disease. This speaker series explores the way that microbes connect public policy, social disparities, and human health, as well as the ongoing research, education, policy, and innovation in this field. 

You can find recordings from previous series here.

“Searching for missing gut microbes in the Amazon”

Dr. Emma Allen-Vercoe, PhD

July 29, 2026, 11:00 – 13:00 EDT. The recording will be available online here after the event.

Dr. Emma Allen-Vercoe obtained her BSc (Hons) in Biochemistry from the University of London, and her PhD in Molecular Microbiology through an industrial partnership with Public Health England. Emma started her faculty career at the University of Calgary in 2005, with a Fellow-to-Faculty transition award through CAG/AstraZeneca and CIHR, to study the normal microbes of the human gut. In particular, she was among the few that focused on trying to culture these ‘unculturable’ microbes in order to better understand their biology. To do this, she developed a model gut system to emulate the conditions of human and other animal guts and allow communities of microbes to grow together, as they do naturally. Emma moved her lab to the University of Guelph in late 2007, and has been a recipient of several awards (through the Canada Foundation for Innovation) that have allowed her to develop her specialist anaerobic fermentation laboratory further. Emma is a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair, and her lab studies many microbial ecosystems, including those of Indigenous people of the Amazon, people in the industrialized world suffering from chronic disease, and those of honey bees and native pollinator insect species of Canada. Her faculty page is here.

Events will be hosted January – December in 2026, on the last Wednesday of every month, 11:00 – 13:00 pm ET. Presented over Zoom.

After each talk, we will continue the discussions in an informal social meeting with MSE. All speakers and members of the audience are welcome to join the social meeting.

Hosted by: Sue Ishaq, MSE, and finacially supported by the University of Maine Institute of Medicine, and the Applied Microbiology International via the 2025 Dororthy Jones Diversity and Inclusion Acheivement Award.

New this year: the live session will be available free, but the on-demand video-recording will only be available to MSE members for the first year (and available to the public afterwards).

Summary: 

Microorganisms are critical to many aspects of biological life, including human health.  The human body is a veritable universe for microorganisms: some pass through but once, some are frequent tourists, and some spend their entire existence in the confines of our body tissues.  The collective microbial community, our microbiome, can be impacted by the details of our lifestyle, including diet, hygiene, health status, and more, but many are driven by social, economic we, medical, or political constraints that restrict available choices that may impact our health.   Access to resources is the basis for creating and resolving social equity—access to healthcare, healthy foods, a suitable living environment, and to beneficial microorganisms, but also access to personal and occupational protection to avoid exposure to infectious disease. This speaker series explores the way that microbes connect public policy, social disparities, and human health, as well as the ongoing research, education, policy, and innovation in this field. 

You can find recordings from previous series here.

“Searching for missing gut microbes in the Amazon”

Dr. Emma Allen-Vercoe, PhD

July 29, 2026, 11:00 – 13:00 EDT. The recording will be available online here after the event.

Dr. Emma Allen-Vercoe obtained her BSc (Hons) in Biochemistry from the University of London, and her PhD in Molecular Microbiology through an industrial partnership with Public Health England. Emma started her faculty career at the University of Calgary in 2005, with a Fellow-to-Faculty transition award through CAG/AstraZeneca and CIHR, to study the normal microbes of the human gut. In particular, she was among the few that focused on trying to culture these ‘unculturable’ microbes in order to better understand their biology. To do this, she developed a model gut system to emulate the conditions of human and other animal guts and allow communities of microbes to grow together, as they do naturally. Emma moved her lab to the University of Guelph in late 2007, and has been a recipient of several awards (through the Canada Foundation for Innovation) that have allowed her to develop her specialist anaerobic fermentation laboratory further. Emma is a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair, and her lab studies many microbial ecosystems, including those of Indigenous people of the Amazon, people in the industrialized world suffering from chronic disease, and those of honey bees and native pollinator insect species of Canada. Her faculty page is here.

I’m delighted to announce the publication of a new article that lays the foundation for assessing and implementing goals for good stewardship of microbial communities. Microbiomes are vital for the health of humans, animals, plants, and the planet, providing key metabolic and ecological functions, but. it’s not easy to decide how to preserve or care for them, who should be responsible, and how to know the strategy succeeded. Microbiome stewardship (MiSt) is a strategic, evidence-based approach to maintaining microbial biodiversity and functions across habitats to support health and ecosystem stability. The paper provides guidance on setting up partnerships, assessing microbial communities, outlying goals for stewardship strategies, and thinking about the long-term benefits of maintaining microbial communities for environmental and public health. Led by Kieran O’Doherty, who leads the Microbiome Stewardship research group, the paper features authors from that core group as well as other researchers who have joined the group, and in doing so, co-developed and helped us refine our ideas.

The guidelines paper is now published in the scientific journal Sustainable Microbiology. It will join our recently published paper, “Microbes first into the life rafts: preserving microbiomes to secure health in degrading ecosystems” in a special collection (opening soon – details to follow) curated by some of the MiSt team to highlight invited research or policy case studies. These case studies will vary from topics ranging from dietary additives and effect on gut microbiomes and cancer risk, to how undersized culverts restrict salt water marshes’ chemistry and microbiology, to the way that design and evaluate microbiome studies.

“Microbiome Stewardship: Definition and Guiding Principles for Implementation“

Authors: O’Doherty KC, Beijbom M, Allen-Vercoe E, Choudoir MJ, Silva DS, Bonilla C, Debelius J, Elton S, Hauptmann AL, Heyland A, Morar N, Skillings D, Sun Z, Wolf PM, Beiko RG, Ishaq SL.

Sustainable Microbiology, qvag028, https://doi.org/10.1093/sumbio/qvag028. Published: 24 June 2026

Abstract: Microbiomes are essential for ecosystem, plant, animal, and human health. There is accumulating evidence that changes to microbiomes from anthropogenic activities are associated with adverse health outcomes. Despite this evidence and calls for action, almost no oversight mechanisms exist to protect microbiomes or their key functions, in part due to uncertainty about what to protect, and how. We have previously proposed microbiome stewardship as a foundational concept that can act across policy domains to facilitate the ongoing presence of key microbial communities and their functions. The purpose of this article is to provide a working definition of microbiome stewardship and develop guiding principles to support its implementation. The concept of microbiome stewardship is relevant to a wide range of policy domains, such as public health, clinical care, environmental protection, food production, and agriculture. Nonetheless, the implementation of microbiome stewardship will be highly specific, as it needs to be guided by considerations of microbial habitat, objectives of stewardship, and available opportunities for intervention. Accordingly, aligning stewardship responsibility with specific institutions and governance mechanisms will be context dependent. We conclude with a discussion that situates microbiome stewardship relative to other initiatives.

Highlights

1. Accumulating evidence suggests that some human-induced changes to microbiomes are linked to adverse health outcomes in hosts and ecosystems.
2. We develop guiding principles of microbiome stewardship that comprise a set of premises, responsibilities, and practices aimed at maintaining microbial biodiversity and microbiome functioning across microbial habitats.
3. The premises of microbiome stewardship include knowledge that is necessary to understand the foundational roles of microbiomes for the health of organisms and ecosystems.
4. The responsibilities of microbiome stewardship include imperatives for sustaining health of humans and other organisms.
5. The actions of microbiome stewardship provide guidance for implementing microbiome stewardship goals in practice.

Events will be hosted January – December in 2026, on the last Wednesday of every month, 11:00 – 13:00 pm ET. Presented over Zoom.

After each talk, we will continue the discussions in an informal social meeting with MSE. All speakers and members of the audience are welcome to join the social meeting.

Hosted by: Sue Ishaq, MSE, and finacially supported by the University of Maine Institute of Medicine, and the Applied Microbiology International via the 2025 Dororthy Jones Diversity and Inclusion Acheivement Award.

New this year: the live session will be available free, but the on-demand video-recording will only be available to MSE members for the first year (and available to the public afterwards).

Summary: 

Microorganisms are critical to many aspects of biological life, including human health.  The human body is a veritable universe for microorganisms: some pass through but once, some are frequent tourists, and some spend their entire existence in the confines of our body tissues.  The collective microbial community, our microbiome, can be impacted by the details of our lifestyle, including diet, hygiene, health status, and more, but many are driven by social, economic we, medical, or political constraints that restrict available choices that may impact our health.   Access to resources is the basis for creating and resolving social equity—access to healthcare, healthy foods, a suitable living environment, and to beneficial microorganisms, but also access to personal and occupational protection to avoid exposure to infectious disease. This speaker series explores the way that microbes connect public policy, social disparities, and human health, as well as the ongoing research, education, policy, and innovation in this field. 

You can find recordings from previous series here.

“The nexus of food systems, ecosystems and human health: considering the more-than-humans who co-produce health”

Dr. Sarah Elton, PhD

June 24, 2026, 11:00 – 13:00 EDT. The recording will be available online here after the event.

Dr. Sarah Elton is an Assistant Professor and Eakin Chair in Critical Qualitative Health Research Methodology at the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health. She researches at the nexus of food systems, ecosystems and human health, considering the more-than-humans who co-produce health, including microbes. In 2021, she was the first qualitative researcher to be recognized by the Gairdner Foundation when she won a Gairdner Early Career Investigator Award. Previous to her academic career, Sarah worked as a journalist and is the author of two Canadian bestselling nonfiction books, Locavore and Consumed: Food for a Finite Planet. In this presentation, she draws on more-than-human methodologies and her own field work in food systems to explore different ways social scientists can conduct research with microbes. She focuses on how critical qualitative research methodologies can enable scholars to investigate the social and political forces that shape human-microbe relations.

The Maine Farmcast, a podcast led by my friends and colleagues at UMaine Cooperative Extension, Drs. Colt Knight and Glenda Pereira, invited me to chat about my research and teaching recently. Check out Episode 111: ‘Gut Check, Microbiomes in Agriculture and Health with Dr. Sue Ishaq’! I had a lot of fun catching up with Colt and sharing horror stories about messy research on the farm and in the lab.

Maine Farmcast

“The Maine Farmcast features weekly conversations with experts from across the country sharing insights and advice for both new and seasoned farmers running operations of any size. Hosted by three livestock specialists from the University of Maine Cooperative Extension, the show brings you world-class expertise paired with practical advice about how to apply cutting-edge research to improve the efficiency and sustainability of your farming operation.”

Events will be hosted January – December in 2026, on the last Wednesday of every month, 11:00 – 13:00 pm ET. Presented over Zoom.

After each talk, we will continue the discussions in an informal social meeting with MSE. All speakers and members of the audience are welcome to join the social meeting.

Hosted by: Sue Ishaq, MSE, and finacially supported by the University of Maine Institute of Medicine, and the Applied Microbiology International via the 2025 Dororthy Jones Diversity and Inclusion Acheivement Award.

New this year: the live session will be available free, but the on-demand video-recording will only be available to MSE members for the first year (and available to the public afterwards).

Summary: 

Microorganisms are critical to many aspects of biological life, including human health.  The human body is a veritable universe for microorganisms: some pass through but once, some are frequent tourists, and some spend their entire existence in the confines of our body tissues.  The collective microbial community, our microbiome, can be impacted by the details of our lifestyle, including diet, hygiene, health status, and more, but many are driven by social, economic we, medical, or political constraints that restrict available choices that may impact our health.   Access to resources is the basis for creating and resolving social equity—access to healthcare, healthy foods, a suitable living environment, and to beneficial microorganisms, but also access to personal and occupational protection to avoid exposure to infectious disease. This speaker series explores the way that microbes connect public policy, social disparities, and human health, as well as the ongoing research, education, policy, and innovation in this field. 

You can find recordings from previous series here.

“The nexus of food systems, ecosystems and human health: considering the more-than-humans who co-produce health”

Dr. Sarah Elton, PhD

Jun 24, 2026, 11:00 – 13:00 EDT.. The recording will be available online here after the event.

Dr. Sarah Elton is an Assistant Professor and Eakin Chair in Critical Qualitative Health Research Methodology at the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health. She researches at the nexus of food systems, ecosystems and human health, considering the more-than-humans who co-produce health, including microbes. In 2021, she was the first qualitative researcher to be recognized by the Gairdner Foundation when she won a Gairdner Early Career Investigator Award. Previous to her academic career, Sarah worked as a journalist and is the author of two Canadian bestselling nonfiction books, Locavore and Consumed: Food for a Finite Planet. In this presentation, she draws on more-than-human methodologies and her own field work in food systems to explore different ways social scientists can conduct research with microbes. She focuses on how critical qualitative research methodologies can enable scholars to investigate the social and political forces that shape human-microbe relations.