Mary Coughter is a PhD Candidate in Integrative Life Sciences at Virginia Commonwealth University under the advisory of Dr. Rima Franklin. She also holds her master’s degree in Biology at VCU, and her bachelor’s at Virginia Tech in Environmental Science. Located in Richmond, Virginia, her current research takes place in the James River, a huge resource of food, water, and recreation in the area as well as a tributary to the Chesapeake bay. Here she examines the spread of antibiotic resistance in bacteria and their genes in these public waterways, looking at different communities of bacteria as resistance reservoirs – both the water column and riverine biofilms. Based in a city historically known for redlining communities and where environmental stressors and adverse health impacts have been observed along those lines, she’s very interested in exploring if antibiotic prescription rates along communities in the watershed follow similar patterns. 

Her student page is here.

Dr. Kelly K. Baker, PhD., is an Associate Professor of Epidemiology and Environmental Health at the State University of New York Buffalo School of Public Health, and Director of the Center for Climate Change and Health Equity research. She conducts One Health focused eco-epidemiology studies in the US and globally that identify practical intervention strategies that can prevent transmission of enteric viruses, bacteria, and parasites between humans, animals, and the environment. Her funded research includes the development and testing of rapid diagnostics as well as projects like PATHOME, which develop virtual laboratories that can model the impact of different global development strategies on enteric disease burden. These transdisciplinary studies use pathogen diversity in children, animals, and the environment as means for identifying which living conditions, alone or in combination, best contribute to a decline in disease burden in high transmission settings. This evidence can then be used by policy makers and practitioners to select high impact investments.

Her Faculty page is here.

Dr. Davida Smyth, PhD., is an Associate Professor at Texas A&M University – San Antonio. She received her Ph.D. in Microbiology from the University of Dublin, Trinity College, Ireland, and completed her postdoctoral training at New York Medical College, the University of Mississippi Medical Center, and New York University. She has served as an Associate Professor and Chairperson of the Department of Natural Sciences in Mercy College’s School of Health and Natural Sciences, an Assistant Research Scientist in Richard Novicks lab at NYU Langone Medical Center, an Adjunct Lecturer for the online Masters in Bioinformatics program at NYU Tandon School of Engineering, and an Assistant Professor of Biology at New York City College of Technology (NYCCT). She is an external committee member for Mercy Colleges Adjunct Academy component of their Inclusive Excellence Project and Peer-Led Team Learning Program for Biology, Chemistry, and Psychology students. In 2019, she was invited to the steering committee of the Research Experiences in Microbiomes Network (REMNet) of CUNY and became a Co-PI in 2020. Her research focuses on epidemiology of microbes in wastewater, and she is deeply committed to improving STEM education with integrated social impacts, such as her course on “How the Toilet Changed the World” about the role and impact of sanitation on our society and about the ongoing and future challenges associated with both access to toilets and sustainable toilet design.

This talk will focus on how microbes in our built environment can tell us much about the biological and chemical processes occurring. From their transmission through the air and their accumulation in our wastewater, we can learn much about the health of our communities, at different levels of scale and over time. Using novel sampling techniques and next generation sequencing we’re studying the microbes in our classroom air, those present in the soils around our campus, and in our city’s wastewater to determine the prevalence of pathogens as well as antibiotic resistance.

Her lab website is here; they research microbiology, sustainability, pedagogy, and inclusion.

Dr. Erica Hartmann, PhD., Associate Professor at Northwestern University. Dr. Erica Marie Hartmann is an environmental microbiologist interested in the interaction between anthropogenic chemicals and microorganisms, as well as bio-inspired mechanisms for controlling microbial communities.