Dr. Bradford is a research scholar in NC State’s Public Science Lab for Ecology, Evolution and Biodiversity of Humans and Food where she draws together interdisciplinary engagement of microbes, exploring fermentation, probiotic health and pathogens. Dr. Bradford is also a college Chaplain at Salem Women’s College, and Director of the Center for Contemporary Practice and Wellbeing. Working at the intersections of religion, microbiology, ecology and race, Dr. Bradford’s research investigates the historical entanglement of disease theories, public health strategy, Christian thought, and coloniality to cultivate ecological wisdom, scientific engagement and the pursuit of environmental justice in religious contexts. She asks questions like, how have the historical entanglement of epidemiology, coloniality and Christian teaching contributed to the disease of both body and planet, the disproportionate effects of which are born by black and brown communities? How has demonizing the microbe paved the way for oppression of those deemed sub-human? And how might microbiome science reform Christian thought that often disrupts engagement of science and is complicit in exploitative and exclusionary ways of being?

This week, we’ll be bringing some speakers back to engage in a panel discussion together on the importance of environmental microbiomes and specifically on soil conservation.

Panel will be hosted by 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.

Dr. Anna Krzywoszynska is an Associate Professor in Anthropology at the University of Oulu, and a research leader in the Biodiverse Anthropocenes programme (Anna Krzywoszynska | University of Oulu). She is an interdisciplinary environmental social scientist with expertise in agricultural and environmental knowledge, more-than-human research, and public participation in science. Her current research interests include human-soil relations and knowledge systems, the co-production of soil knowledge between science and society, and the role of local food systems in achieving socio-environmental justice.

Paula Palanco is a medical anthropologist with a background in Development Studies and Communication. She has completed an Advanced Masters in Cultural Anthropology and Development Studies in KULeuven (Belgium) and worked for the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), the University of Oxford, and Imperial College London. Paula has carried out research in different topics such as antimicrobial resistance (AMR), air monitoring and cholera epidemics. Currently, she is a PhD candidate in the University of Oulu (Finland), researching the connection between the loss of soil biodiversity and AMR.

These two weeks, we’ll be bringing some 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.

Dr. Cecil Lewis is a Professor and biological and interdiscplinary scientist based at the University of Oklahoma. His primary research focus is the microbiome and community-engaged research, with current work that investigates ancient and contemporary human metabolomes, pathogen evolution, the impact of colonialism on the microbiome and metabolome, along with progressive community-based partnerships across the Americas and Africa. His work is supported by the NSF and NIH. He is the founder and director of Laboratories of Molecular Anthropology and Microbiome Research (LMAMR).

Image sourced from: https://cecilmlewis.com/

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.

Dr. Schnorr is a PostDoctorial Researcher at the University of Vienna.

I am formally trained as a biological anthropologist and human biologist, and pursued research on the topics of human diet in human evolutionary ecology. I studied in particular the capacity for digesting plant material from wild foods, and how this is facilitated by both technology and the gut microbiome, as an auxiliary adaptative mechanisms in human health. I studied also ancient microbiomes from coprolite material, and microbial mutualisms in arthropod and environmental contexts. Extending from my interest in brain growth and nutrition acquisition traits among humans, I picked up the inquiry on environmental provisioning of essential lipids from microbiomes. I transitioned to microbial ecology in pursuit of answers to help reconcile the apparent discontinuity between supply and demand of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids in terrestrial ecosystems, driven by prior experience working in human evolutionary theory, and by present perspectives of ecological networks.

Image sourced from: https://dome.csb.univie.ac.at/

These two weeks, we’ll be bringing some 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.

This week, we’ll be hosting a panel with MSE members and speakers! We needed to accommodate a change in the schedule, and decided to have some fun with it. Join us to chat about our favorite microbiome facts, what we think pressing issues are in research, and more!

Panel will be hosted by Sue Ishaq.

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

This week, we’ll be hosting a panel with MSE members and speakers! We needed to accommodate a change in the schedule, and decided to have some fun with it. Join us to chat about our favorite microbiome facts, what we think pressing issues are in research, and more!

Panel will be hosted by Sue Ishaq.

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

David Good is a PhD student in microbiology at the University of Guelph, Ontario. His general research goal is characterizing the structural and functional microbial diversity of his Yanomami family, the Irokae-teri, located in the Amazon rainforest of Venezuela. They are of great interest in the microbiome field since the Irokae-teri live fully immersed in the rainforest environment and subsist by an active lifestyle of hunting-gathering and small-scale gardening. Furthermore, their relative isolation deep in the Amazon limits their exposure to microbiome stressors such as antibiotics, highly refined and processed foods, industrial toxins and pollutants, food preservatives, etc. David will discuss this unique and rare opportunity to advance our understanding of the human microbiome of a community largely unperturbed by westernization, while building global awareness on the importance of protecting these few remaining isolated indigenous societies. However, such research brings numerous challenges surrounding bioethics. David hopes to build dialogue around going beyond simple compliance in microbiome research, and how the Yanomami have the right to self-determination and harness their bioeconomic potential to protect their home.

Photo sourced from: https://www.jointhegoodproject.org/team

These two weeks, we’ll be bringing 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.

Dr. Robinson is a microbial ecologist based in the UK (soon to be Australia). In 2021, he received a PhD from the University of Sheffield. He is passionate about researching microbes, ecosystems, social equity issues and the connections between them, and at the same time, he is keen to develop ways to conserve and restore nature. Invisible Friends is his first book. This book counters the prevailing narrative of microbes as the bane of society, along the way providing much-needed clarity on the overwhelmingly beneficial role they play. Discover how the microbiome is highly relevant to environmental and social equity issues while there’s also discussion about how microbes may influence our decisions; even the way we think about how we think may need to be revisited. Invisible Friends introduces the reader to a vast, pullulating cohort of minute life – friends you never knew you had! Jake has worked on several publications with the MSE Working Group founder Dr Sue Ishaq and even interviewed her for the Microbes and Social Equity chapter in Invisible Friends.

For two weeks, we’ll be bringing back 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.

Dr. Eldin Jašarević, who presented on “The maternal microbiota and offspring development: Towards a translational systems approach in maternal-child health.”

Dr. Merilee Brockway, who presented on “The maternal microbiota and offspring development: Towards a translational systems approach in maternal-child health.”

Dr. Sarah Lebeer, who presented on T’he vaginal microbiome: key for women’s health & healthy newborns’.