Tag: microbes and social equity

The 2023 MSE speaker series is open for registration!

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The Microbes and Social Equity Speaker Series is back for its third year, starting in just two weeks! We are still finalizing the speaker lineup and the details, but registration is open!

In 2023, we’ll be mixing up the lineup by featuring speakers on a related theme for a few weeks in a row, then inviting them back for a panel discussion. Please note, the talks may be recorded but the panel discussions will not be.

Spring 2023; January 18 – May, Wednesdays from 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM EST.

Presented over Zoom. Registration is free!

You can register for any or all of the events from the same link here.

Hosting Organizations: MSE and the University of Maine Institute of Medicine.

These seminars are in development, and you can find up to date details on the event page.

Gut microbiome, nutrition, and food security

Theme organized by Sue Ishaq

“Broccoli Sprout Bioactives and Gut Microbiota: A Dietary Approach for Prevention and Management of Inflammatory Bowel Disease”

Dr. Yanyan Li, PhD

January 18, 2023; Wednesday,11:00 AM – 12:00 PM EST. Register for the Zoom link here.

Headshot of Dr. Yanyan Li

Dr. Li is an Assistant Professor at the University of Maine. She received her PhD degree in Nutrition and Food Science from Ohio State University. She has been dedicating herself to studying the mechanisms of diet-derived bioactives in protecting against disease process and harnessing the gained knowledge to develop dietary approaches for disease prevention and management for more than a decade. Since 2016, she has been focusing on the interactions between dietary components, in particular glucosinolates from cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli and broccoli sprouts, and gut microbiota, aiming to develop a combined approach for inflammatory bowel disease. Her current research projects are funded by NIH/NIDDK, USDA/NIFA AFRI Foundational Program, and nutrition research programs of private foundations.

Added by Sue: For the past few years, Yanyan and her colleagues have also included the Ishaq Lab, and has led to a rewarding and productive collaboration which has resulted in several recent and forthcoming publications, funding awards, and students trained.

Dr. Dany Fanfan, Ph.D., MSN, RN

January 25, 2023; Wednesday,11:00 AM – 12:00 PM EST. Register for the Zoom link here.

“Personalized nutrition and the human gut microbiome”

Dr. Sean Gibbons, PhD

February 1, 2023; Wednesday,11:00 AM – 12:00 PM EST. Register for the Zoom link here.

Headshot of Dr. Sean Gibbons.

Dr. Sean Gibbons is an Associate Professor at the Institute for Systems Biology, a non-profit research consortium. His lab develops computational and experimental tools for exploring and manipulating host-microbe systems.

Added by Sue: The work from Sean’s group and collaborators has been reshaping the way that host microbial researchers approach their work, by revealing trends through large metanalyses and novel perspectives on using data. Their most recent work has evaluated host-microbial interactions, metabolites, and health.

For the last three years, Sean’s lab has hosted the ISB Virtual Microbiome Series, which is freely available and attracts several thousand participants. The series includes a two day workshop that teaches data analysis skills, and a day-long symposium featuring discussions of current discoveries and conceptualizes the future of microbiome research.

Finally, Sean and his research group have been making science a more welcoming and inclusive place.

Panel discussion on Gut microbiome, nutrition, and food security

February 8, 2023; Wednesday,11:00 AM – 12:00 PM EST. Register for the Zoom link here.

This week, we’ll be bringing all of our Theme 1 speakers back to engage in a panel discussion together on the gut microbiome. Panel will be hosted by Sue Ishaq.

Please note, this session will only be featured live in real-time and will not be recorded.

Prenatal to early-life microbes and health

Theme organized by Emily Wissel.

Speaker confirmed but time TBD:

Dr. Eldin Jašarević, Magee-Womens Research Institute, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine

Speaker 4 TBD

February 15, 2023; Wednesday,11:00 AM – 12:00 PM EST. Register for the Zoom link here.

Speaker 5 TBD

February 22, 2023; Wednesday,11:00 AM – 12:00 PM EST. Register for the Zoom link here.

Speaker 6 TBD

March 1, 2023; Wednesday,11:00 AM – 12:00 PM EST. Register for the Zoom link here.

Panel discussion on Prenatal to early-life microbes and health

March 8, 2023; Wednesday,11:00 AM – 12:00 PM EST. Register for the Zoom link here.

This week, we’ll be bringing all of our Theme 2 speakers back to engage in a panel discussion together on the microbiome in early life. Panel will be hosted by Emily Wissel.

Please note, this session will only be featured live in real-time and will not be recorded.

The environment, microbes, and us

Anthropology Theme organized by Katherine Daiy and Kieran O’Doherty, and Environmental Theme organized by Mallory Choudoir, Mustafa Saifuddin, and Hannah Holland-Moritz.

Speakers confirmed by time TBD:

  • Dr. Stephanie Schnorr, University of Vienna, “The human-valued interest in microbiome science is the distillation of human-environmental interactions”
  • Dr. Aminah Al-Attas Bradford, North Carolina State University, “Religion, Race and the Microbe: Theological Analysis of Public Health Resistance in the Pandemicine”
  • David Good, University of Guelph

Speaker 7 TBD

March 22, 2023; Wednesday,11:00 AM – 12:00 PM EST. Register for the Zoom link here.

Speaker 8 TBD

March 29, 2023; Wednesday,11:00 AM – 12:00 PM EST. Register for the Zoom link here.

Speaker 9 TBD

April 5, 2023; Wednesday,11:00 AM – 12:00 PM EST. Register for the Zoom link here.

“Anthropology, Microbiomes, and Antimicrobial Resistance”

Dr. Cecil Lewis, PhD.

April 12, 2023; Wednesday,11:00 AM – 12:00 PM EST. Register for the Zoom link here.

Dr. Cecil Lewis is a Professor at the University of Oklahoma.

Title TBD

Dr. Anna Krzywoszynska, PhD.

April 19, 2023; Wednesday,11:00 AM – 12:00 PM EST. Register for the Zoom link here.

Dr. Anna Krzywoszynska is starting a position as an Associate Professor of Transdisciplinary Human-Environment Relations, Faculty of Humanities, University of Oulu, Finland.

Speaker 12 TBD

April 26, 2023; Wednesday,11:00 AM – 12:00 PM EST. Register for the Zoom link here.

Panel Discussion on the environment, microbes, and us

May 3, 2023; Wednesday,11:00 AM – 1:00 PM EST. Register for the Zoom link here.

This week, we’ll be bringing all of our Theme 3 speakers back to engage in a panel discussion together on the importance of environmental microbiomes and our place in ecosystems, and then will continue talking about soil health. Panel will be hosted by Katherine Daiy, Kieran O’Doherty, Mallory Choudoir, Mustafa Saifuddin, and Hannah Holland-Moritz.

Please note, this session will only be featured live in real-time and will not be recorded.

Logo designed by Alex Guillen

MSE’s 2022 year in review

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The Microbes and Social Equity working group turned 3 years old in December, and we currently have 170 members from around the globe, as well ~100 newsletter-only subscribers (you can join either list here)! MSE continues to grow and shape the future of research, education, and policy thanks to the enthusiasm and support of our members, and we are grateful to have you with us!

We grew so much that in 2022 we added Directors to the Leadership Team, to support our administration and communication needs. In particular, our Directors and other communications specialists helped MSE to improve the way we share information across platforms and within the organization. In 2023, we will continue to improve how members connect with each other, and how people can connect with MSE. Our mailing list is the primary way to reach our members, but we also have public pages on Facebook and Twitter, as well as group pages on LinkedIn and Slack.

Speaker series

Early in 2022, we hosted our second annual spring seminar series, which was organized by Sue Ishaq, Mustafa Saifuddin, Emily Wissel, Melissa Manus, Francisco Parada, and the University of Maine Institute of Medicine. The series had 411 attendees and 901 registrants total across the 14 talks, which is more than the 2021 series had. These and previous talks have been used for teaching materials at several colleges and universities. In case you missed it or want to relive the moments, you can find links to the talks here.

The talks also garnered more attention in the UMaine community this year. Patricia Kaishian’s April 13 talk was promoted as part of the University of Maine Impact Week, and journalist Samantha Sudol of the MaineCampus wrote summaries on talks by Jake Robinson and Patricia Wolf.

Summer symposium 

Our symposium in 2022 was a little different than the first version, in that our 5 themed days focused on “Developing transformative research skills”, organized by Sue Ishaq, Ari Kozik, Ashley Toney, Emily Wissel, Kieran O’Doherty, Mallory Choudoir, Mustafa Saifuddin, Erin Eggleston, Carla Bonilla, Monica Trujillo, and Cecile Ferguson (UMaine Institute of Medicine). Our themes this year were  “Context-aware experimental designs”, “Blending biological, social, and humanities writing”, “Transforming your research for policy engagement”, “Community engagement and collaboration”, and “MSE Education Practices and Curriculum design”. 

This year’s symposium featured 20 speakers across 5 themed days with 3 plenary-style talks/day, followed by 90 min of small-group discussion led by speakers and MSE members. Participants were encouraged to “problem solve” a suggested topic or one of their own choosing to create action items that were meaningful to them, such as ideas for curricula development, identifying research needs or best practices, suggestions for engaging research in policy, and more. The symposium hosted 220 participants (460 registrations) overall and 121 across the breakout room discussions. Registrants were from 23 countries, students and researchers from various fields and career levels, Maine State legislators, and the public. The symposium led to 16 drafted resources documents written by participants.

Our symposium from 2021 led to an invited perspective piece in 2022 on organizing interdisciplinary working groups and conferences to Challenges, the journal for the inVIVO Planetary Health group: Designing the Microbes and Social Equity Symposium, a novel interdisciplinary virtual research conference based on achieving group-directed outputs.

Special collection of research articles at mSystems

The MSE special collection in the mSystems Journal has published nearly half of the anticipated contributions so far.  The inaugural piece was written by a group of MSE members, and has since been joined by 10 other articles and an editorial. 

ASM and ESA

MSE held special sessions at two scientific conferences in 2022.  At ASM Microbe, Monica Trujillo, Ariangela Kozik, Carla Bonilla, and Sue Ishaq hosted a panel discussion: Microbes and Social Equity: the Microbial Components of Social, Environmental, and Health Justice. The panelists covered many aspects important to MSE from using collaborative, real-life science in microbiology teaching labs, questioning social inequities and disparities in health outcomes, and practicing critical pedagogy in microbiology education using a social equity lens. The panel was highlighted in an article published by ASM and drew an engaged audience eager to learn and share their experiences and vision for microbiology research.

 Additionally at ASM Microbe, Emily Wissel, Johanna Holman, and Sarah Hosler were kind enough to give Sue’s presentation on “Microbes and Social Equity: what is it and how do we do it?” for the Field Work and DEI track hub.

Sarah Hosler, Johanna Holman, and Emily Wissel presenting at ASM Microbe.
Sarah Hosler presentating a slide of questions about the microbes that associate with scallops
Sarah Hosler, ASM 2022.

Mallory Choudoir and Naupaka Zimmerman hosted the special session “Adding social contexts to environmental microbiomes” at the 2022 Ecological Society for America meeting in Montreal. A full room gathered to learn about the MSE working group. We drew a diverse crowd (over 40 participants), most were “microbial ecology” graduate students from public research universities, all aiming to learn new information about microbiology and social justice. We held a lively group discussion considering the human dimensions of our research projects and the perceived barriers to broadening our work to explicitly address social and environmental equity. It was fantastic to see so many smiling faces behind masks!

What are we doing in 2023?

In 2023, we will be hosting a speaker series starting in mid January, and this year we will be mixing it up by featuring speakers on a theme for a few weeks and then bringing them back for a panel discussion. We will be sharing the full line-up soon. Also new this year, one link to register them all!

MSE is planning our third annual summer symposium, which is still under development. This will be held virtually, and have a format similar to previous years where we combine plenary talks and discussions. We are hoping to add short talks/posters by students, post docs, and early career researchers this year!

As always, members are encouraged to give presentations or special sessions about MSE at scientific conferences this year, and we have previous session proposals or teaching materials which we can share to facilitate this. We also encourage members to get in touch with MSE with questions about resources, networking, or initiatives you would like to suggest.

MSE is continuing to add the rest of the contributions to the mSystems special collection in the first half of 2023, and as always we are enthusiastic about our members connecting and sparking collaborative projects! 

Happy 2023!!

Happening today, ‘Session 4: Community engagement and collaboration’ at the July 2022 MSE virtual symposium!

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Today is the fourth day of the July 2022 MSE virtual symposium, which is focused on “Community engagement and collaboration”. Don’t worry, you still have time to register and join the conversation!

This session will feature four talks featuring researchers who have experience bringing communities and members of the public into research teams as contributing members, rather than just study subjects. Not only does this improve the relationship between research and the public, but it creates better-informed research studies and wider spread of positive impacts. Our hope is that attendees for this session learn from different perspectives how to engage with communities early on to spark conversations and collaboration with their research.

Session 4: “Community engagement and collaboration”

Thursday, July 21st, 12:30 ~ 16:00 EST. post updated: This session has passed, watch the recorded talks.

Session leaders:

Portrait of Mustafa Saifuddin, Ph.D.,

Mustafa Saifuddin, Ph.D., Staff Scientist, Sustainable Food and Farming Program at Earthjustice

Ashley M. Toney, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Research Fellow, UTHealth School of Public Health, El Paso. Translational/Clinical Nutrition Researcher focused on Latine Health Disparities.

Scope: Due to the interconnectedness of microbial processes and social justice, many types of microbial research could benefit from closer collaborations with communities impacted directly by the public health, environmental and climate justice implications of microbiomes. Some styles of microbiome research would yield more positive outcomes if the collaboration was built around mutual long-term goals, instead of specific projects, and if it was initiated during project conceptualization instead of after the project has been designed. This session will explore different styles of interdisciplinary collaborations centered on community needs, such as community advisory boards, community partnerships, community-led research design, and how to implement this into microbiome research.

Learning Objective of Session: Attendees will learn 1) approaches to community-centered collaborations, 2) how to leverage community professionals (e.g. health workers) in a ‘train the trainer model’, 3) how to start ethical conversations around environmental samples & broader experimental design, and 4) how to emphasize collaborations – including public health, government, policy makers, etc. as a collaborator and how to ask for their help/mindful collaborations.

Format of talks: Four 30-min lecture-style talks from researchers who have successfully built research collaborations with communities.

Format of breakout rooms: Each room creates a plan for engagement, and each room has a designated topic area (e.g. environmental restoration) to help audience members group by research discipline.

Session Speakers:

Dr. Pajau (PJ) Vangay, PhD. Science Community Manager, National Microbiome Data Collaborative, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

“Advancing microbiome science, in partnership with communities”

Dr. Rosie Alegado

Dr. Rosie Alegado, PhD., Associate Professor, Oceanography; Director, Sea Grant Ulana ʻIke Center of Excellence; Director, School of Ocean and and Earth Science and Technology Maile Mentoring Bridge Program at the University of Hawaiʻi, Mānoa

“Community-embedded microbiology in Indigenous spaces”

Dr. Arbor Quist

Dr. Arbor Quist, PhD., Postdoctoral Fellow in Environmental Justice & Community-Driven Epidemiology in the Department of Population and Public Health Sciences at the University of Southern California.

“Partnering with Communities in Environmental Disaster Research”

Professional headshot of Dr. Aidee Guzman

Dr. Aidee Guzman, PhD., NSF and UC Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at UC Irvine.

“Building agricultural resilience from the ground up.”

12:30 – 14:15 Introduction and Speakers

14:15 – 14:30 Break

14:30 – 15:00 Fourth speaker

15:00 -16:00 Breakout room discussions based on skills development, in smaller groups

  • Community-based participatory research (CBPR) & Scientific Community Engagement
  • Best engagement practices (and things to avoid)
  • Community driven epidemiology
  • Agricultural community engagement
  • Finding a community to engage

Prior to this session, you may want to watch these recorded talks:

One week until ‘Session 4: Community engagement and collaboration’ at the July 2022 MSE virtual symposium!

sueishaqlabLeave a comment

We are a week away from the fourth day of the July 2022 MSE virtual symposium, which is focused on “Community engagement and collaboration”. This session will feature four talks featuring researchers who have experience bringing communities and members of the public into research teams as contributing members, rather than just study subjects. Not only does this improve the relationship between research and the public, but it creates better-informed research studies and wider spread of positive impacts. Our hope is that attendees for this session learn from different perspectives how to engage with communities early on to spark conversations and collaboration with their research.

Session 4: “Community engagement and collaboration”

Thursday, July 21st, 12:30 ~ 16:00 EST. Register for this session, which is free and will be held over Zoom

Session leaders:

Portrait of Mustafa Saifuddin, Ph.D.,

Mustafa Saifuddin, Ph.D., Staff Scientist, Sustainable Food and Farming Program at Earthjustice

Ashley M. Toney, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Research Fellow, UTHealth School of Public Health, El Paso. Translational/Clinical Nutrition Researcher focused on Latine Health Disparities.

Scope: Due to the interconnectedness of microbial processes and social justice, many types of microbial research could benefit from closer collaborations with communities impacted directly by the public health, environmental and climate justice implications of microbiomes. Some styles of microbiome research would yield more positive outcomes if the collaboration was built around mutual long-term goals, instead of specific projects, and if it was initiated during project conceptualization instead of after the project has been designed. This session will explore different styles of interdisciplinary collaborations centered on community needs, such as community advisory boards, community partnerships, community-led research design, and how to implement this into microbiome research.

Learning Objective of Session: Attendees will learn 1) approaches to community-centered collaborations, 2) how to leverage community professionals (e.g. health workers) in a ‘train the trainer model’, 3) how to start ethical conversations around environmental samples & broader experimental design, and 4) how to emphasize collaborations – including public health, government, policy makers, etc. as a collaborator and how to ask for their help/mindful collaborations.

Format of talks: Four 30-min lecture-style talks from researchers who have successfully built research collaborations with communities.

Format of breakout rooms: Each room creates a plan for engagement, and each room has a designated topic area (e.g. environmental restoration) to help audience members group by research discipline.

Session Speakers:

Dr. Pajau (PJ) Vangay, PhD. Science Community Manager, National Microbiome Data Collaborative, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

“Advancing microbiome science, in partnership with communities”

Dr. Rosie Alegado

Dr. Rosie Alegado, PhD., Associate Professor, Oceanography; Director, Sea Grant Ulana ʻIke Center of Excellence; Director, School of Ocean and and Earth Science and Technology Maile Mentoring Bridge Program at the University of Hawaiʻi, Mānoa

“Community-embedded microbiology in Indigenous spaces”

Dr. Arbor Quist

Dr. Arbor Quist, PhD., Postdoctoral Fellow in Environmental Justice & Community-Driven Epidemiology in the Department of Population and Public Health Sciences at the University of Southern California.

“Partnering with Communities in Environmental Disaster Research”

Professional headshot of Dr. Aidee Guzman

Dr. Aidee Guzman, PhD., NSF and UC Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at UC Irvine.

“Building agricultural resilience from the ground up.”

12:30 – 14:15 Introduction and Speakers

14:15 – 14:30 Break

14:30 – 15:00 Fourth speaker

15:00 -16:00 Breakout room discussions based on skills development, in smaller groups

  • Community-based participatory research (CBPR) & Scientific Community Engagement
  • Best engagement practices (and things to avoid)
  • Community driven epidemiology
  • Agricultural community engagement
  • Finding a community to engage

Prior to this session, you may want to watch these recorded talks: