Alumni

Tim T. Lott

Email: ttl47 [at] cornell.edu (ttl47[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Tim was a Ph.D. student in the lab from 2018 until 2023. His research was involved with investigating the effectiveness of on-farm interventions for reducing spore forming bacteria in bulk tank raw milk. He was also evaluating the efficacy of different pasteurization parameters and storage temperatures for extending the shelf-life of fluid milk in absence of post-pasteurization contamination. View Tim's LinkedIn profile.

Alexa R. Cohn

Email: arc326 [at] cornell.edu (arc326[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Alexa was a Ph.D student in the lab from 2017 until 2022. Her research focused on risk-based food safety regulations as well as characterization of novel antimicrobial resistance variants. View Alexa's LinkedIn profile.

Samantha Lau

Email: sl2763 [at] cornell.edu (sl2763[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Sam Lau was a Ph.D. student in the lab from 2019 until 2022. Her research focuses on improving the quality of products in the dairy industry, specifically by developing probabilistic modeling tools to describe the microbial dynamics of bacteria associated with post pasteurization contamination in fluid milk. View Sam's LinkedIn profile.

Sam Alcaine

Email: sda23 [at] cornell.edu (sda23[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Sam worked in the lab from 2002 until 2006.  He studied the evolution of multiple antibiotic resistance in Salmonella. He was also interested in the regulation of metabolic pathways in S. cerevisiae during fermentation.  Sam's thesis was entitled:  "Evolution of antibiotic resistant Salmonella". View key publications from Sam's time in the lab on PubMed. View Sam's LinkedIn profile.

Edna Arcuri

Email: efa [at] cornell.edu (efa[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Edna was a graduate student in the lab from 1995 to 1999. Her research in the lab focused on investigating conservation of sporulation regulatory proteins among Bacillus and Clostridium species.  The title of her dissertation was “Sigma factor E in endospore-forming bacteria: phylogeny, functional conservation, and use for PCR-based detection strategies”. View a key publication from Edna's time in the lab.

Torey Arvik

Email: tja5 [at] cornell.edu (tja5[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Torey originally worked in Geneva studying the wine industry, then came to this lab from 1998 until 2001. Here he worked on creating a nonpolar deletion of the sigma B gene. The title of his thesis was “Alternative transcription factor sigma B in foodborne bacteria: sigma B in Listeria monocytogenes and a search for homologous genes in industrially important lactic acid bacteria”. View Torey's key publications from his time in the lab. View Torey's LinkedIn profile.

Anoek Backx

Email: backxa [at] hotmail.com (backxa[at]hotmail[dot]com)

Anoek was a visiting vet student working with Ruth Zadoks on differentiation between Streptococcus spp. and enterococci.

Alexandra Belias

Graduate Student (Ph.D., Food Science)

Email: amb629 [at] cornell.edu (amb629[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Alex worked in the lab from 2017 to 2021. Her projects were associated with tracking pathogen contamination on produce. View Alex's LinkedIn profile.

Sarah Beno

Graduate Student (Ph.D., Food Science)

Email: smb489 [at] cornell.edu (smb489[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Sarah worked on cold growth analysis of Bacillus cereus organisms.  She previously worked with New York State artisan cheese processors, and has also spent several months working with sweet potato processors in Kenya. View Sarah's LinkedIn profile.

Daniela Bocioaga

Email: db292 [at] cornell.edu (db292[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Daniela was a rotation student in Microbiology and was working to determine whether or not sigma B regulates the expression of multiple internalins in Listeria monocytogenes. View Daniela's LinkedIn profile.

Vinicius Buccelli Ribeiro

Graduate Student (Ph.D. Food Science)

Vinicius was a visiting graduate student.  While here, his work focused on the transcriptional response of L. monocytogenes serotype 1/2a and 4b to multiple stress environments (temperature and salt). View Vinicius' LinkedIn profile.

Ariel Buehler

Graduate Student (Ph.D., Food Science)

Email: ajb466 [at] cornell.edu (ajb466[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Ariel’s research focuses on improving the quality of products in the dairy industry, specifically by developing probabilistic modeling tools to describe the microbial dynamics of psychrotolerant sporeformers in fluid milk. View Ariel's LinkedIn profile.

Steven Cai

Email: sc103 [at] cornell.edu (sc103[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Steven worked in the lab, both as an undergraduate and graduate student, from 1998 to 2002. Steven worked on the evolution of the Listeria virulence gene island. He was also instrumental in the genesis and maintenance of the Pathogen Tracker database.  Steven's thesis was entitled:  "Molecular subtyping and evolution of Listeria monocytogenes and Listeria spp." .  View Dr. Cai's key publications from his time in the lab.

Catharine Carlin

Graduate Student (Ph.D., Food Science)

Email: crc272 [at] cornell.edu (crc272[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Catharine was evaluating the performance of AOAC approved rapid Salmonella detection kits under challenging conditions. Additionally, she was also looking at the growth characteristics of all Listeria, including newly classified species, in standard reference method culture medias. View Catherine's LinkedIn profile.

Laura Carroll

Graduate Student (Ph.D., Food Science)

Email: lmc297 [at] cornell.edu (lmc297[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Laura employs a computational approach to study the evolution and taxonomy of foodborne pathogens, including Salmonella enterica, Listeria monocytogenes, and Bacillus cereus.

Yvonne Chan

Email: ycc4 [at] cornell.edu (ycc4[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Yvonne worked in the lab from 2003 until 2007.  She studied the role of Sigma B-dependent and -independent mechanisms during low temperature growth and survival in Listeria monocytogenes using genetic-based approaches such as real-time quantitative reverse transcriptase PCR and whole genome microarrays . Her dissertation is entitled:  "Cold stress in Listeria monocytogenes".  View key publications from Yvonne's time in the lab. View Yvonne's LinkedIn profile.

Travis Chapin

Graduate Student (M.S., Food Science)

Email: tkchapin [at] ufl.edu (tkchapin[at]ufl[dot]edu)

Travis worked in the lab as a technician and then a graduate student from 2009 to 2013. His research focused on the ecology and characterization of foodborne pathogens, in natural and agricultural environments.

Soraya Chaturongakul

Email: sc269 [at] cornell.edu (sc269[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Soraya was a graduate student and then a postdoc in the lab from 2000 to 2007. She first worked on the sigmaB operon in Listeria monocytogenes, then on all four of the L. mono alternative sigma factors, using SOEing PCR to create knockout mutants of each and of all possible combinations of the four.  She also did work on the inhibition of L. mono growth by small molecules. Her dissertation was entitled “Regulation of transcription factor sigmaB activity in the foodborne pathogen, Listeria monocytogenes”. View Soraya's key publications from her time in the lab. View Soraya's LinkedIn profile.

Ruixi Chen

Graduate Student (Ph.D., Food Science)

Email: rc836 [at] cornell.edu (rc836[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Ruixi investigated the effect of pre-growth condition and genetic variation of Listeria monocytogenes on the antimicrobial activity of nisin in cold-smoked salmon. He was also working on the validation of such effects at low inoculum levels, and the identification of L. monocytogenes genes important for resistance to nisin and survival in cold-smoked salmon.

Rachel (Miller) Cheng

Post Doctoral Associate

Email: ram524 [at] cornell.edu (ram524[at]cornell[dot]edu)

The overall goal of Rachel's research was to understand how foodborne pathogens differ in their ability to cause disease. Rachel used two model organisms, Salmonella enterica and Bacillus cereus, to characterize the genetic and molecular mechanisms underlying toxin production by these bacteria. View Rachel's LinkedIn profile.

Ana Rita De Sa' Henriques

Visiting Graduate Student (Ph.D., Food Safety)

Email: ah898 [at] cornell.edu (ah898[at]cornell[dot]edu)

As a visiting PhD student from Portugal, Ana Rita's research assessed the role of alternative sigma factors of L. monocytogenes in stress response.

Tom Denes

Graduate Student (Ph.D., Food Microbiology)

Email: tgd32 [at] cornell.edu (tgd32[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Tom was investigating phage resistance in alternative sigma factor mutants of Listeria monocytogenes. View Tom's LinkedIn profile.

Belgin Dogan

Email: be16 [at] cornell.edu (be16[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Belgin was a graduate student in the lab from 1999 to 2003. She worked on the rapid identification and tracking of dairy microflora. The title of her dissertation was “Microbial populations that affect the quality and safety of fluid milk products”. View key publication of Belgin's time in the lab. View Belgin's LinkedIn profile.

Sarah Douglas

Sarah was a graduate student in the lab from 1996 to 1997. The title of her thesis was “Characterization of chocolate milk spoilage patterns”. View a key publication from Sarah's time in the lab.  She left the lab for employment in product development at M&M Mars. She is currently Sr. Director for operational quality at Schuman Cheese. View Sarah's LinkedIn profile. 

Diana Rovena Duncan

Graduate Student (Visiting Scholar)

Email: dd597 [at] cornell.edu (dd597[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Diana was working on assessing genetic predictors of growth at refrigeration temperatures for commonly isolated dairy spoilage bacteria. Initially, standard milk media will be tested for supporting the growth of psychrotolerant bacteria to determine which media should be used for quantifying growth capability at refrigerated temperatures. View Diana's LinkedIn profile. 

Rachel Evanowski

Technician

Email: rle58 [at] cornell.edu (rle58[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Rachel studies sporeforming bacteria from the farm level to the finished product. Her project's goal is to give farmers clear and feasible management practices that they can use to reduce sporeforming bacteria in raw milk and hopefully increase the shelf life of dairy products. View Rachel's LinkedIn profile.

Vania Ferreira

Email: vaf24 [at] cornell.edu (vaf24[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Vania worked in the lab as a visiting graduate student from 2008 to 2010.  She characterized persistent Listeria monocytogenes strains isolated from traditional fermented meat products produced in Portugal.  Her dissertation was entitled:  "Persistent Listeria monocytogenes in fermented meat sausage production facilities in Portugal represent diverse geno- and phenotypes". View Vania's LinkedIn profile.

Adriana Ferriera

Email: aof2 [at] cornell.edu (aof2[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Adriana was a graduate student in the lab from 1996 to 2002. She worked on the role of alternative sigma factors in stress adaptation and virulence. She also worked on characterizing the phenotype of a Listeria monocytogenes sigma factor B null mutant. The title of her dissertation was “RNA Polymerase Sigma Factor B: Evolution and Role in Environmental stress resistance in Listeria monocytogenes”. Scan key publications from Adriana's time in the lab. View Adriana's LinkedIn profile.

Hazel Fromm

Email: hif2 [at] cornell.edu (hif2[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Hazel was a graduate student in the lab from 2001 to 2004. She worked on a project to identify the spoilage organisms present in fluid milk products 17 days post-pasteurization. Her thesis was entitled: “Characterization of pasteurized fluid milk shelf life attributes”. View Hazel's LinkedIn profile.

Eric Fugett

Email: ericbfugett [at] gmail.com (ericbfugett[at]gmail[dot]com)

Eric worked as a graduate student in the lab from 2003 to 2006, using PFGE to characterize Listeria monocytogenes from our strain collection.  He then integrated the PFGE data into our online database, Pathogen Tracker.  His thesis was entitled:  "Development of Listeria monocytogenes subtype databases".  View key publications from Eric's time in the lab. View Eric's LinkedIn profile.

Mary Godec

Graduate Student (Ph.D., Food Science)

Email: meg256 [at] cornell.edu (meg256[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Mary developed bioinformatics-based approaches to characterize diversity in bacterial spoilage communities. View Mary's LinkedIn profile.

Laura Goodman

Email: llb27 [at] cornell.edu (llb27[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Laura was a rotating Microbiology graduate student in the lab in 2003.  While here, she studied the evolution of virulence genes in Listeria spp., focusing specifically on the hemolysin and prfA genes. View Laura's LinkedIn profile.

Veronica Guariglia

Email: vg93 [at] cornell.edu (vg93[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Veronica was a rotating Microbiology graduate student in the lab in 2009.  While she was here, she studied SigmaB contributions to stress response and virulence in Listeria monocytogenes lineages I, II and IIA and IIIB.  Her rotation project focused on using TaqMan qRT-PCR to check microarray results that indicated certain genes were SigmaB dependent in certain lineages. View Veronica's LinkedIn profile.

Anna Sophia Harrand

Postdoctoral Associate

Email: sh988 [at] cornell.edu (sh988[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Sophia's project evaluates produce-relevant pathogens as well as surrogates, indicators, and index strains for different phenotypic characteristics to help with selection of strains and growth conditions for challenge studies and evaluation of interventions. View Sophia's LinkedIn profile.

Lory Henderson

Graduate Student (Ph.D., Microbiology)

Email: loh9 [at] cornell.edu (loh9[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Lory is investigating the efficiency of combined stresses on L. mono using simultaneous vs. sequential "checkerboard" assays.

Clint Hervert

Graduate Student (M.S., Food Science)

Email: cjh263 [at] cornell.edu (cjh263[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Clint's graduate studies focused on both traditional and novel detection methods for coliforms, Enterobacteriaceae, and total Gram-negative organisms in dairy products, as well as yeasts and molds in yogurt.

Adam Hoffman

Email: adh22 [at] cornell.edu (adh22[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Adam was a graduate student in the lab from 1999 to 2001.  During his time here, he worked on the detection of Listeria monocytogenes and Listeria spp in fish processing plants using PCR.  His thesis was entitled:  "Detecting and tracking sources of Listeria monocytogenes in the smoked fish industry".  Key publications from Adam's time in the lab can be found here. View Adam's LinkedIn profile.

Tsung-Han (Kent) Hsieh

Graduate Student (M.P.S, Food Science)

Email: th444 [at] cornell.edu (th444[at]cornell[dot]edu)

With interests in food safety issues of dairy products, Tsung-Han's research focused on characterization of pathogens and coliforms from cheese. View Tsung-Han's LinkedIn profile.

Yuewei Hu

Email: yuwei.hu [at] genmills.com (yuwei[dot]hu[at]genmills[dot]com)

Yuewei worked in the lab from 2002 to 2007 on two related projects. First, she studied the transmission and persistence of Listeria monocytogenes in RTE smoked salmon plants. Then, she focused on the hrcA and ctsR global stress response regulators, which L. monocytogenes uses to survive in its host environments. Yuewei's dissertation was entitled: "L. monocytogenes stress response systems and in-plant transmission and persistence". View Yuewei's key publications from her time in the lab. View Yuewei's LinkedIn profile.

Jason Huck

Email: jrh63 [at] cornell.edu (jrh63[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Jason was a graduate student in the lab from 2004 to 2008. He worked on milk spoilage microbes with the MQIP lab, particularly on Bacillus and Paenibacillus. The title of his thesis was “Molecular subtyping and characterization of psychrotolerant endospore-forming bacteria in fluid milk production systems: from farm to table”.  Jason went on to be Manager of Cornell’s Dairy Plant. View Jason's key publications from his time in the lab. View Jason's LinkedIn profile.

Reid Ivy

Email: rai6 [at] cornell.edu (rai6[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Reid first came to the lab in 2005 as a Technician, then became a graduate student in 2006. During his time in the lab, he explored the effects of growth temperature on the contributions of response regulators, Sigma B, and PrfA to intestinal epithelial cell invasion and the transcriptional response to acid stress in L. monocytogenes. Reid's dissertation was entitled: "Effects of growth temperature on the regulation of host cell invasion and acid stress response in Listeria monocytogenes". View key publications from Reid's time in the lab. View Reid's LinkedIn profile.

Gregory Jeffers

Email: gregory.jeffers [at] gortons.com.

Gregory was a graduate student in the lab from 1996 until 1998. He worked on genetic characterization of Listeria monocytogenes isolates from animal and human cases of listeriosis. The title of his thesis was “Strain differentiation among Listeria monocytogenes isolates”. View Gregory's key publications from his time in the lab. View Gregory's LinkedIn profile.

Hilarie Jerauld

Email: hilariej [at] vt.edu (hilariej[at]vt[dot]edu)

Hilarie worked in the lab for the summer of 2005 as a visiting graduate student under the Veterinary Summer Scholar program. During her time here, she worked on reverting a naturally occurring premature stop codon in the L. monocytogenes F2365 inlA gene. This was an attempt to prove that the single bp mutation that created the stop codon was responsible for F2365's phenotype of attenuated invasiveness.

Jiahui Jian

Graduate Student (M.P.S., Food Science)

Email: jj528 [at] cornell.edu (jj528[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Jiahui was assessing methods to better differentiate between potentially pathogenic and non-pathogenic strains within the Bacillus cereus Group through (i) toxin gene profiling, (ii) characterizing virulence factors, and (iii) assessing toxin production. View Jiahui's LinkedIn profile.

Agnes Ju

Email: cj68 [at] cornell.edu (cj68[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Agnes worked on a project involving rapid detection of pathogenic Vibrio parahaemolyticus.

Jihun Kang

Email: jk2264 [at] cornell.edu (jk2264[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Jihun worked on identifying effective antimicrobial combinations to control Listeria monocytogenes on smoked seafood as well as determining resistance mechanisms used by L. monocytogenes to overcome antimicrobial stress. View Jihun's LinkedIn profile.

Mark Kazmierczak

Email: mjk46 [at] cornell.edu (mjk46[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Mark was a graduate student from 2000 to 2005.  While here he studied the scope of transcriptional regulation by Sigma B in Listeria monocytogenes and used RT PCR and microarrays to identify genes under the control of Sigma B.  He also studied gene induction by Sigma B due to environmental stress.  Mark's dissertation was entitled:  "Defining the Sigma B regulon in Listeria monocytogenes".  View key publications from Mark's time in the lab. View Mark's LinkedIn profile.

Hee-Sun Kim

Email: hkim [at] kfda.go.kr (hkim[at]kfda[dot]go[dot]kr)

Hee-Sun was a graduate student in the lab from 2000 until 2004. She worked on the contribution of the sigma B alternative sigma factor to the invasion of host cells by Listeria monocytogenes through its control of the expression of inlA and inlB. The title of her dissertation was “The general stress responsive sigma factor B and its role in intracellular parasitism of Listeria monocytogenes”. View Hee-Sun's key publications from her time in the lab.

Victoria Lappi

Email: vrl [at] cornell.edu (vrl[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Vicki worked in the lab from 2002 to 2003, working on two related projects.  She used culturing and molecular subtyping methods to identify Listeria monocytogenes and track its source and spread within seafood processing plants.  This research helped lead to the development of improved sanitary SOPs for the industry.  Vicki also worked on the development of DNA sequencing based sub-typing methods for Listeria spp. detection.  Her thesis was entitled:  "Longitudinal studies to determine the impact of intervention strategies on Listeria".  View Victoria's key publications from her time in the lab. View Victoria's LinkedIn profile.

Scarlett Lee

Graduate Student (DVM, 2017, Cornell University)

Email: sel245 [at] cornell.edu (sel245[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Scarlett was working on a project trying to identify the multi-factorial causes of the transmission of foodborne pathogens onto produce fields. View Scarlett's LinkedIn profile.

Jingqiu Liao

Graduate Student (Ph.D., Microbiology)

Email: jl3374 [at] cornell.edu (jl3374[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Jingqiu's research focused on the population genetics of foodborne pathogens using whole genome sequencing, and the ecological and evolutionary mechanisms shaping the biogeography of foodborne pathogens. View Jingqiu's LinkedIn profile.

Beth Licitra

Email: bnm4 [at] cornell.edu (bnm4[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Beth was a rotating graduate student in the lab in 2008.  While here, she investigated similarities between plasmids bearing the Beta-lactamase CM-2 in both E. coli and Salmonella isolates from cattle within the same herd. This project was part of a collaboration with Dr. Lorin Warnick in Clinical Sciences. View Beth's LinkedIn profile.

Yichang Liu

Graduate Student (Ph.D., Food Science)

Email: yl2383 [at] cornell.edu (yl2383[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Yichang was researching the stress response system in Listeria. Using multiple molecular biological techniques, she was trying to investigate the regulatory networks in Listeria and their roles in helping the bacteria to survive under the changing environments. Currently, she is the project manager at Yili Group. View Yichang's LinkedIn profile.

Irene M. Loch

Email: iml3 [at] cornell.edu (iml3[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Irene was a visiting Veterinary Student who helped Ruth Zadoks  develop strategies for typing Streptococci and Enterococci with known macrolide resistance. These techniques will subsequently be used to characterize the resistance of field isolates collected from mastitis treatment trials. View Irene's LinkedIn profile.

Courtney Lucas Stelling

Email: crl33 [at] cornell.edu (crl33[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Courtney worked in the lab from 2005 to 2008, investigating the function and regulation of Listeria seeligeri virulence genes.  She also characterized Listeria in natural environments.  Her dissertation was entitled:  "Ecology and evolution of Listeria seeligeri".  View key publications from Courtney's time in the lab.

Tom Malley

Email: tjm255 [at] cornell.edu (tjm255[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Tom was a graduate student in the lab from 2010 until 2012. While here he worked on how the layout and work flow of food processing plants affects their ability to eradicate Listeria species contamination.  The title of his thesis was: “Listeria monocytogenes in ready-to-eat food processing plants: persistence indicators and control strategies”. View key publications from Tom's in the lab. View Tom's LinkedIn profile.

Steph Masiello

Graduate Student (Ph.D, Food Science)

Email: snm56 [at] cornell.edu (snm56[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Stephanie is studying spore-forming spoilage organism in fluid milk and their presence in dairy farm environments. View Stephanie's LinkedIn profile.

Meghan McCamey

Email: mam49 [at] cornell.edu (mam49[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Meghan worked with graduate student Dawn Norton on a project using DNA fingerprinting and DNA-based detection methods to determine the sources of Listeria monocytogenes, a human foodborne pathogen, in smoked fish. 

Margrit Meinen

Email: margrit [at] hotmail.com (margrit[at]hotmail[dot]com)

As a Visiting Student, Margrit worked with Ruth Zadoks on the identification of Streptococcus spp. from bovine milk through the use of selective plating media and DNA sequencing.

Sara Milillo

Email: srm226 [at] psu.edu (srm226[at]psu[dot]edu)

Sara worked in the lab from 2004 to 2008, defining the virulence contributions of select lineage-specific internalin genes in Listeria monocytogenes.  This project used genetic engineering and animal and plant tissue culture techniques to assess L. monocytogenes' virulence potential in a range of hosts.  Sara's dissertation was entitled:  "Attachment of Listeria monocytogenes to plant surfaces and host cells and its survival in host and non-host environments".  View key publications from Sara's time in the lab..

Sana Mujahid

Graduate Student (Ph.D., Food Science)

Email: sm832 [at] cornell.edu (sm832[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Sana was a graduate student in the lab from 2008 until 2013. While she was here, she characterized  the sigma B-dependent noncoding RNA, SbrE .  The title of her thesis was: “The alternative sigma factors of Listeria monocytogenes: stress response regulation at the level of non-coding RNAs and proteins”. View Sana's key publications from her time in the lab.

Sarah Murphy

Postdoctoral Associate

Email: sim39 [at] cornell.edu (sim39[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Sarah’s research was focused on expanding knowledge of microbial dynamics in food systems to develop evidence-based practices that promote lasting impacts to food quality and safety throughout the supply chain. View Sarah's LinkedIn profile.

Céline Nadon

Email: can5 [at] cornell.edu (can5[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Céline was a graduate student in the lab from 1999 until 2003. Céline's work focused on the transmission, pathogenesis and epidemiology of foodborne bacterial diseases.  The title of her dissertation was “Stress response, alternative sigma factor sigma B and virulence of Listeria monocytogenes”. View key publications from Céline's time in the lab.

Dorothy Nakimbugwe

Dorothy was a graduate student in the lab from 1994 until 1996. Dorothy's graduate work focused on dairy milk. The title of her dissertation was: “Characterization of ultra-pasteurized (UP) fluid milk: microbial, sensory and chemical properties”. After leaving the lab she became a faculty member at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda.

Viviana Toledo Neira

Visiting Graduate Student (PhD)

Email: vtn7 [at] cornell.edu (vtn7[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Viviana's research focused on phenotypic and genetic characterization of Listeria monocytogenes isolated from listeriosis cases, food, and food processing plants.

Jesper Sejrup Nielsen

Jesper is a graduate student in the Birgitte Kallipolitis lab at the University of Southern Denmark.  He visited our lab to work on identifying and characterizing small non-coding regulatory RNAs in Listeria monocytogenes.

Dawn Norton

Email: dn19 [at] cornell.edu (dn19[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Dawn was a graduate student in the lab from 1997 until 2000. The title of her dissertation was “Molecular studies on the ecology, transmission and human pathogenic potential of Listeria monocytogenes strains”. View Dawn's key publications from her time in the lab.

Heather O'Neill

Graduate Student (Ph. D., Microbiology)

Email: heather [at] straszheim.com (heather[at]straszheim[dot]com)

Heather was a rotation student who used PCR techniques to amplify putative SigB-dependent promoters for cloning into reporter fusions.

Haley Oliver

Email: haf9 [at] cornell.edu (haf9[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Haley was a graduate student in the lab from 2004 until 2009. During her time in the lab, Haley used knockout mutagenesis, microarrays, Q-PCR and RNA sequencing to explore how sigma B and prfA function in the stress response and virulence gene expression of the different lineages of L. monocytogenes.  The title of her dissertation was: “Contribution of sigma B to stress response and virulence in Listeria monocytogenes lineages I, II and IIIB”. View Dr. Oliver's key publications from her time in the lab.

Juliane Ollinger

Graduate Student (Ph.D. Microbiology)

Email: jo76 [at] cornell.edu (jo76[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Juliane was a graduate student in the lab from 2004 until 2008. While she was here, Jule studied the SigmaB-PrfA interactions in regulating virulence gene expression, as well as gene expression in non-host environments. The title of her dissertation was: “The sigmaB-prfA co-regulon in the foodborne pathogen Listeria monocytogenes”. View key publications from Juliane's time in the lab.

Mary Elizabeth (Liz) Palmer

Liz was a graduate student in the lab from 2005 until 2010. While here, she focused on the role of transcriptional regulators in virulence of Listeria monocytogenes, and on small molecule inhibitors of L. mono. The title of her dissertation was: “Understanding the roles of transcriptional regulators for the development of natural and novel inhibitors of Listeria monocytogenes”. View key publications from Liz's time in the lab.

Sarah Perdue

Email: sp366 [at] cornell.edu (sp366[at]cornell[dot]edu)

While at the lab as a rotating graduate student, Sarah constructed Listeria monocytogenes internalin C, F and G mutants.

Richard Van Vleck Pereira

Email: rvp25 [at] cornell.edu (rvp25[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Richard, as a rotating graduate student, worked on genetically characterizing Listeria monocytogenes using 10-locus MLST.

Rachel Peters

Email: rsm16 [at] cornell.edu (rsm16[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Rachel was a rotating graduate student in comparative biomedical sciences.

Rachel Pfuntner

Graduate Student (Ph.D., Food Science)

Email: rcp26 [at] cornell.edu (rcp26[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Rachel's project focused on isolating and identifying Listeria from pristine environments.

Sarita Raengpradub

Ph.D.

Email: sarita.raengpradub [at] silliker.com (sarita[dot]raengpradub[at]silliker[dot]com)

Sarita was a graduate student from 2002 until 2007. She compared the reactions of pathogenic Listeria monocytogenes and the closely related Listeria innocua nonpathogen to various stress conditions and how those responses were modulated by sigma B factor. The title of her dissertation was: “Comparative evaluation of sigma B-dependent stress responses in Listeria monocytogenes and Listeria innocua”. View Sarita's key publications from her time in the lab.  Sarita is a research scientist at Silliker Inc. in South Holland, IL

Robert Ralyea

Email: rdr10 [at] cornell.edu (rdr10[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Rob was a graduate student in the lab from 1996 until 1998. The title of his thesis was: “Tracking and identification of microbial contamination in milk production systems. He has since gone on to be Milk Quality Improvement Program Senior Extension Associate at Cornell. View Rob's key publications from his time in the lab.

Matthew Ranieri

Ph.D.

Email: mlr38 [at] cornell.edu (mlr38[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Matt was a graduate student in the lab from 2006 until 2009 and a postdoc until 2013.  He worked on increasing the shelf life of fluid milk. The title of his thesis was: “Bacterial ecology of high temperature short time pasteurized fluid milk”. View key publications from Matt’s time in the lab.

Sam Reichler

Technician

Email: sjr267 [at] cornell.edu (sjr267[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Sam was working with New York State dairy plants to detect and characterize the bacteria in their milk responsible for post-pasteurization contamination and spoilage. His project's goal is to implement corrective actions at the plant level that will improve the quality and shelf-life of fluid milk by reducing the instance of post-pasteurization contamination. View Sam's LinkedIn Profile.

Daina Ringus

Ph.D.

Email: dlr229 [at] cornell.edu (dlr229[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Daina was a graduate student in the lab from 2009 until 2013. She studied stress gene expression in persistent and non-persistent isolates of Listeria. The title of her dissertation was: “Novel Strategies for Characterizing and Controlling the Stress Response of Listeria SPP.”.  View Daina's ey publications from her time in the lab.

Angela Roberts

Email: ajr29 [at] cornell.edu (ajr29[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Angela was a graduate student in the lab from 2000 until 2004. She used tissue culture and genetic approaches to investigate the effects of allelic variations in virulence genes (focusing on actA), host specificity and virulence in Listeria monocytogenes. The title of her dissertation was: “Virulence differences among Listeria monocytogenes strains and clonal groups”. View Angela's key publications from her time in the lab.

Lorraine D. Rodriguez-Rivera

Graduate Student (Ph.D., Food Science)

Email: lr242 [at] cornell.edu (lr242[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Lorraine studied the virulence, pathogenicity, and host specificity of Salmonella enterica subsp. enterica serovars.  Her project focused on characterizing the diversity and distribution of Salmonella enterica in dairy farms and subclinical dairy cattle.

Christina Rosas

Graduate Student (Ph. D., Microbiology)

Email: ctr8 [at] cornell.edu (ctr8[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Christina was a rotation student in Dr. Boor's lab, creating sigma-B null mutations in Listeria innocua and Listeria ivanovii to study the role of sigma factor B in the ability of a gram positive organism to respond to rapidly changing environments and cause human disease.

Brian Sauders

Email: bds26 [at] cornell.edu (bds26[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Brian was a graduate student in the lab from 2000 until 2005. Brian's research interests focused on the epidemiology and pathogenesis of foodborne infectious diseases (and specifically L. monocytogenes) and the development and application of molecular subtyping methods. The title of his dissertation was: “Ecology and Epidemiology of Listeria monocytogenes in humans, foods and environmental sources”. View key publications from Brian’s time in the lab.

Anna Schumann

Graduate Student (Ph.D., Biological and Biomedical Sciences)

Email: as2635 [at] cornell.edu (as2635[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Anna is interested in virulence factors of bacterial pathogens and antibiotic resistance. She is currently working on creating a robust expression system for mobile colistin resistance (mcr) genes which provide resistance to last-resort antibiotic colistin. The hope is that the expression system can be used as an universal tool to determine how much resistance new mcr variants confer, and eventually aid in the identification of new variants of concern.

Supriya Shahi

Email: ss2473 [at] cornell.edu (ss2473[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Supriya worked on the detection and isolation of Listeria, Salmonella, and E. Coli from samples collected from pristine environments.

Xin Shi

Graduate Student (MPS, Food Science)

Email: xs254 [at] cornell.edu (xs254[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Xin's project studies the association of farm management practices on the butyric acid bacteria in bulk tank raw milk. Additionally, she is also working on a project to analyze milk powders in order to test spores and enhance dairy quality and safety. View Xin's LinkedIn profile.

Courtenay Simmons

Graduate Student (Ph.D., Food Science)

Email: cs687 [at] cornell.edu (cs687[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Courtenay worked with Henk den Bakker on sequencing motility genes in all species of Listeria.

Pranjal Singh

Email: ps558 [at] cornell.edu (ps558[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Pranjal worked on molecular subtyping of Salmonella subspecies, mainly the rare species not commonly found in the US.

Jane Soudah

Jane was a graduate student in the lab between 1994 and 1996. The title of Jane’s thesis was: “The competitive inhibition of Escherichia coliO157:H7 by mesophilic and thermophilic starter cultures”.  View Jane's key publication from her time in the lab.

Yesim Soyer

Email: ys258 [at] cornell.edu (ys258[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Yesim was a graduate student in the lab from 2005 until 2009.  She worked on characterizing Salmonella enterica subtypes and also ran the Pulsed Field Gel Electrophoresis department in the lab. The title of her dissertation was: “Subtype diversity, population genetics and evolution of multi-drug resistant Salmonella”. View Yesim's key publications from her time in the lab.

Matthew Stasiewicz

Graduate Student (Ph.D., Food Science)

Email: ms984 [at] cornell.edu (ms984[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Matt was interested in improved quantitative tools for food safety risk analysis.  His range of projects included (a) quantitative microbial risk analysis of the impact of pasteurization temperature changes on the safety of fluid milk, (b) using machine learning analysis and whole genome sequencing to identify persistent bacteria contamination in food-associated environments, and (c) field work in Kenya in which he worked on developing a low-cost optical sorter to remove mycotoxin contaminated maize kernels from consumer food supplies.

David Sue

Email: ds56 [at] cornell.edu (ds56[at]cornell[dot]edu)

David Sue earned a B.S. in Biological Sciences (CALS’00) and a Ph.D. in Food Science (CALS’04) from Cornell University. David now works in Atlanta, GA at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  He is a laboratory Team Lead in the Division of Preparedness and Emerging Infections, in the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases. His team of microbiologists study the bacterial pathogens that cause human anthrax, plague, and melioidosis (Bacillus anthracis, Yersinia pestis, and Burkholderia pseudomallei). 

His current research interests include the development of new laboratory tests that quickly detect antimicrobial resistance in bacterial biothreat pathogens using WGS and other molecular techniques.

Sharinne Sukhnanand

Email: ss154 [at] cornell.edu (ss154[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Sharinne was a graduate student in the lab from 2002 until 2004. Before that, she was an undergraduate and a technician. Sharinne's work focused on understanding the genetic diversity of Streptococcus agalactiae, a causative agent for mastitis in cows as well as meningitis in human neonates.  She used DNA sequence-based subtyping techniques to identify clonal groups within S. agalactiae.  She further characterized these clonal groups with tissue culture based studies.  The ultimate goal of her work was to define the zoonotic transmission potential for this species and apply the techniques used in this study to other organisms of concern to the dairy industry, e.g., Salmonella enterica. The title of her thesis was: “Molecular subtyping and genetic diversity of human and animal pathogens: Streptococcus agalactiae and Salmonella enterica”. View key publications from Sharinne’s time in the lab.

Genevieve Sullivan

Graduate Student (Ph.D., Food Science)

Email: gbs55 [at] cornell.edu (gbs55[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Genevieve was involved with a foodborne pathogen detection project, Whole Genome Sequencing, and the NY CoE.

Lang "Sally" Sun

Graduate Student (M.P.S., Food Science)

Email: ls837 [at] cornell.edu (ls837[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Lang is investigating the role of quorum sensing in expression of hemolysin BL in Bacillus cereus group bacteria.

Kazue Takeuchi

Kazue's work focused on Escherichia coli O157:H7 acid adaptation and survival under acidic conditions

Silin Tang

Postdoctoral Associate

Email: st543 [at] cornell.edu (st543[at]cornell[dot]edu)

As a Ph.D. student in the lab, Silin worked on evaluating the efficacies of various antimicrobials against L. monocytogenes on ready-to-eat food at refrigerated temperatures. She also studied the gene expression profile of L. monocytogenes in food matrices and laboratory media under stress conditions via RNA sequencing.

Joanne Thimothe

Email: jt232 [at] cornell.edu (jt232[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Joanne was a graduate student in the lab from 2000 until 2002. Joanne's project involved the application of culturing and molecular subtyping methods for the detection and control of environmental Listeria monocytogenes in food processing plants. The title of her thesis was: “Tracking and control strategies of Listeria monocytogenes in seafood processing plants”. View Joanne's key publications from her time in the lab.

Yeu-Harn (Lucy) Tsai

Email:yt96 [at] cornell.edu (yt96[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Lucy was a graduate student in the lab from 2003 until 2006. She worked on sequencing the Listeria  internalin A gene from a variety of food isolates. The title of her thesis was: “Evolution of Listeria monocytogenes internalins”.

Pajau Vangay

Graduate Student (M.S., Food Science)

Email: pv98 [at] cornell.edu (pv98[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Pajau was a graduate student in the lab from 2010 until 2013. Pajau worked on developing computational methods and approaches for modeling food-borne pathogen transmission into food systems. The title of her thesis was: “Food safety in a data-driven world: developments using machine learning and databases”. View key publications from Pajau's time in the lab..

Kitiya Vongkamjan

Email: kv75 [at] cornell.edu (kv75[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Kitiya was a graduate student in the lab from 2007 until 2012. She worked on the ecology, characterization and presence of Listeriophages over time. Also, she genetically characterized the phages and studied their host ranges. The title of her project was: “Ecology and genomics of listeriaphages”. View Kitiya's key publications from her time in the lab.

Yanan Wang

Graduate Student (M.P.S., Food Science)

Email: yw688 [at] cornell.edu (yw688[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Yanan is working with Deanna Simmons and the Food Product Development Lab to develop a protein-fortified yogurt product.

Matthew J. Watterson

Email: mjw298 [at] cornell.edu (mjw298[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Matt was a graduate student in the lab from 2012 until 2013. He worked on a project to help understand transmission of sporeforming organisms in dairy powder processing plants. The title of his thesis was: “Understanding Transmission of Sporeformers in Dairy Powder Products”.

Marie Yeung

Ph.D

Email: marieyeung [at] usa.net (marieyeung[at]usa[dot]net)

Marie was a graduate student in the lab from 1999 until 2004. The goals of Marie's research projects were to develop rapid identification of pathogenic Vibrio parahaemolyticus with serotype O3:K6, and to differentiate pathogenic and non-pathogenic Vibrio parahaemolyticus. She then worked on assay development using gene-based and tissue culture approaches. The title of her dissertation was: “Comparative characterization of Vibrio parahaemolyticus and molecular detection of the pandemic O3:K6 clone”.

Heng Zhao

Email: hz285 [at] cornell.edu (hz285[at]cornell[dot]edu)

As a rotating graduate student in spring 2013, Heng studied the regulons of alternative sigma factors and their regulatory mechanisms in Listeria monocytogenes.

Ziyu Xue

Email: zx54 [at] cornell.edu (zx54[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Ziyu joined the lab in Feb 2022. She assists with media and labware preparation.

Robin Kim

Email: rck92 [at] cornell.edu (rck92[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Robin joined the lab in Feb 2022. She assisted with media and labware preparation. Robin previously worked on observing the quality of fermented dairy products under varying storage conditions. 

Ganga Dripaul

Email: gd294 [at] cornell.edu (gd294[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Ganga joined the lab in Feb 2022. She assisted with media and labware preparation. Ganga had a vast interest in all branches of biology but had a particular interest in studying biomaterials. 

Ida Agerbjer

Email: ima2 [at] cornell.edu (ima2[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Ida worked as a research assistant on Jason Huck's milk spoilage organism project. Specifically, she helped sequence the rpoB gene.

Maranatha Ayodele

B.S. '02, Chemical Sciences

Email: mbf22 [at] cornell.edu (mbf22[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Mara joined our laboratory as a Food Science Summer Scholar in the summer of 2001. She worked in the lab until her graduation in May 2002.  She worked on the application of DNA sequencing based subtyping to probe the evolution of the human and animal pathogen Streptococcus agalactiae. She also played in important role in setting up various computer programs for evolutionary analyses in the lab and in helping in evolutionary analyses of L. monocytogenes.

Jasmine Badamo

B.S. 2008, Biology, Cornell University

Email: jmb293 [at] cornell.edu (jmb293[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Jasmine studied the effect of aeration on expression of prfA promoters in Listeria Monocytogenes.  She also worked on PFGE-typing.

Avery Becker

Undergraduate Student (B.S., Food Science)

Email: aab229 [at] cornell.edu (aab229[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Avery assists with media and labware preparation for experimental use.  He was a 2014 Summer Scholar in our lab.

Karlyn Beer

Email: kdb26 [at] cornell.edu (kdb26[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Karlyn looked at the role of the LisR-K regulatory system in the activation of Sigma B in Listeria monocytogenes. After graduation, she worked as a technician in the Food Safety Lab.  She has done a fellowship at CDC, and will be a Ph.D. student at the University of Washington in Seattle.

Halle Bershad

Undergraduate (B.S., Food Science)

Email: hsb56 [at] cornell.edu (hsb56[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Halle assists with media and labware preparation for experimental use.

Courtney Bolger

B.S. '02, Food Science, Cornell University

Email: ceb33 [at] cornell.edu (ceb33[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Courtney worked in both Dr.Wiedmann's and Dr. Boor's laboratories. Her work involved evolutionary analysis of the human and animal pathogen Streptococcus agalactiae. She also worked with Celine Nadon developing reporter fusions to study gene expression in Listeria monocytogenes.

Liselle Bovell

Biology 2006, Oglethorpe University

Email: jeminem1217 [at] yahoo.com (jeminem1217[at]yahoo[dot]com)

Liselle was working with L. monocytogenes to investigate multiplex PCR-typing and sequence-typing of the sigB gene as alternatives to traditional serotyping.

Hannibal Brooks

Undergraduate Summer Scholar (B.S., Food Science)

Email: hab223 [at] cornell.edu (hab223[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Hannibal was a 2016 Food Science Summer Scholar working on characterizing Bacillus and Paenibacillus.

Natasha Brooks

Food Science 2005, Pennsylvania State University

Email: nib106 [at] psu.edu (nib106[at]psu[dot]edu)

Tasha was one of our 2004 Food Science Summer Scholars and worked on obtaining MLST data in 14 human listeriosis outbreaks and comparing them to 150 L. monocytogenes isolates not connected to any listeriosis outbreaks.

Claire Broton

Biology (Microbiology), A&LS, 2007

Email: ceb62 [at] cornell.edu (ceb62[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Claire sequenced the inlA gene in 26 L. monocytogenes isolates that were found to have attenuated virulence.

Ana M. Brown

Email: ab2336 [at] cornell.edu (ab2336[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Ana studied the phenotypic variations of Listeria monocytogenes.

Stephanie Brown

Email: sb763 [at] cornell.edu (sb763[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Stephanie's project was focused on the distribution and characterization of type IV Pili Operon and SPV in Salmonella representing different serovars isolated from clinical cases.

Brittany Bundrant

B.S. 2010, Animal Science, Cornell University

Email: bnb6 [at] cornell.edu (bnb6[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Brittany was an undergraduate research assistant working under Henk den Bakker.  She was investigating the evolutionary relationships and population genetics of Listeria species.

Michelle Callahan

Michelle worked in the lab as an undergraduate research assistant.

Theresa Cargioli

B.S. '02, Agricultural and Biological Engineering, Cornell University

Email: tgc6 [at] cornell.edu (tgc6[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Theresa joined our laboratory as a Food Science Summer Scholar in the summer of 2001 and worked in the lab until her graduation in May 2002.  She worked with Angela Roberts to probe the effects of allelic variation on virulence characteristics of Listeria monocytogenes . She also contributed to the development of the DNA sequencing-based subtyping methods for L. monocytogenes.

Laura Carroll

Email: lmc297 [at] cornell.edu (lmc297[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Laura worked with Teresa Bergholz studying Salmonella's physiological response to heat shock in ground turkey.  She is now a Ph.D. student in the lab.

Mary Carson

Email: mcarson [at] lamar.colostate.edu (mcarson[at]lamar[dot]colostate[dot]edu)

Mary visited from Colorado State University where she was a junior in the veterinary medicine program. Participating in the Cornell Leadership Program for Veterinary Students in the summer of 2002, she worked on Streptococcus uberis research.

LeRoy Chan

Email: vintage_rocker [at] yahoo.com (vintage_rocker[at]yahoo[dot]com)

LeRoy was a visiting summer scholar from Singapore. He worked with Hup on inlA sequencing of bovine fecal isolates to detect the presence of a premature stop codon which may enhance the ability of L. monocytogenes to be shed fecally and/or to establish a carrier state.  He also worked on sigB sequencing of Listeria spp. isolates from pristine and urban environments.

Clarence Chee

Biotechnology 2005, Ngee Ann Polytechnic, Singapore

Email: cc437 [at] cornell.edu (cc437[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Clarence was a visiting Singapore student in 2004 working on: 1) testing the hypothesis that a truncated inlA gene is more commonly found in food than infected humans through DNA sequencing, 2) plaque assays with Kendra Nightingale, and 3) watching PFGE and ribotyping with Katy Windham.

Elaine Cheng

B.S. '02, Biotechnology

Email: ceel [at] pacific.net.sg (ceel[at]pacific[dot]net[dot]sg)

Elaine spent seven weeks in the summer of 2001 working in our lab as part of the overseas training program. She worked on the development of reporter fusions to probe sigma B dependent gene expression in Listeria monocytogenes.

Michael Chung

B.S. '02, Computer Science, Cornell University

Email: msc23 [at] cornell.edu (msc23[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Mike worked in the laboratory from May 2000 until May 2002.  He played a key role in the development of the PathogenTracker bacterial subtype and strains database.  His also contributed to research on the rational development of improved DNA sequencing methods to subtype bacterial pathogens and to probe their evolution. He currently attends medical school at Albert Einstein Medical College in New York City.

Shannon Coleman

Email: Scoleman85 [at] hotmail.com (Scoleman85[at]hotmail[dot]com)

Shannon was a Food Science Summer Scholar working with Jason Huck on the characterization of pateurized fluid milk shelf-life attributes.

Taylor Cookingham

Email: tcooki05 [at] ufl.edu (tcooki05[at]ufl[dot]edu)

Taylor Cookingham participated in the 2002 Summer Scholar Program as a visiting sophomore Food Science major from the University of Florida. Interested in pursuing a career in new product development, she worked with Vicki Lappi, tracking Listeria monocytogenes through the seafood industry.

Jessica L. Corron

Email: jlc232 [at] cornell.edu (jlc232[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Jessica worked with Haley Oliver on L. monocytogenes mutant construction and with Esther Fortes on protocol development.

Gabriela Andrea Cortez Ramos

Undergraduate Summer Scholar

Email: gc473 [at] cornell.edu (gc473[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Gabriela Andrea Cortez Ramos, a Biology (B.S.) undergrad from Universidad Simón Bolívar and in the CienciAmerica Summer Research Program, was working with Veronica Guariglia (Ph.D.) studying the effect of bile on Listeria monocytogenes after pre-exposure to low pH.

Mary Pat Craver

Mary Pat worked on the evolutionary characterization of human and animal isolates of Streptococcus agalactiae in regard to the housekeeping gene sodA. She also used DNA sequence based subtyping methods to probe the evolutionary relationships of bovine Salmonella enterica isolates.

Birla De Leon

B.S. '04, Biotechnology, University of Puerto Rico

Email: bmdlionrules [at] hotmail.com (bmdlionrules[at]hotmail[dot]com)

Birla participated in the 2001 Leadership Alliance Summer Research Program at Cornell and spent 9 weeks in our laboratory. She worked on DNA-based subtyping methods to characterize Listeria monocytogenes subtypes that cause human disease.

Emmie Dengler

Emmie was a participant in the 2003 Summer Scholar Program, working with Sarita on stress response in L. monocytogenes using the prfA/sigB double mutant. She also worked on Ruth Zadok's and Mark Kazmierczak's projects.

Billy J Erazo Flores

Summer Scholar Student

Email: billy.erazo [at] upr.edu (billy[dot]erazo[at]upr[dot]edu)

Billy will research how dairy-specific environmental conditions affect Listeria monocytogenes susceptibility to Nisin. 

Katie Evans

Katie graduated in May 2001 with a BS in Biological Sciences and went to pursue her DVM/PhD at the Cornell Vet School.  During that time, she worked part-time in the lab on the NIH Listeria project.

Charis Ng Hui Fang

Email: charish [at] hotmail.com (charish[at]hotmail[dot]com)

Charis did an 8 week training program in the Boor Lab, learning various molecular techniques.

Mariel Fisher

B.S. '04, Human Biology, Health and Society, Cornell University

Email: mbf22 [at] cornell.edu (mbf22[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Mariel was a presidential research scholar. She started working in our laboratory in spring of 2001 and worked on DNA-based subtyping to explore the clonal structure of Listeria monocytogenes until she graduated.

Fritz Foo

B.S. Molecular Environmental Biology 2012, University of California, Berkeley

Email: fritzfoo [at] gmail.com (fritzfoo[at]gmail[dot]com)

Fritz's research characterized the survival of outbreak and non-outbreak Salmonella Enteritidis isolates in egg albumin, with particular focus on comparing growth trends and PFGE profiles

Stacyann Forrester

Nutrition, Food and Agriculture 2006, College of Human Ecology, Cornell University

Email: sef32 [at] cornell.edu (sef32[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Stacyann was a 2004 Food Science Summer Scholar working on making a delete lmo1433 mutant. She continued working with Ute Schwab, among others, on studying the host-pathogen interaction between C. elegans and Listeria monocytogenes.

Raquel Furtado

Email: rmf33 [at] cornell.edu (rmf33[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Raquel worked with Haley Oliver to study the growth response of L . monocytogenes in stress environments.

Alexandra Gardner

Email: alg234 [at] cornell.edu (alg234[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Allie worked with Teresa Bergholz on characterization of Listeria monocytogenes and other strains' abilities to grow under stress.

Joyanna Gilmour

Undergraduate Research Assistant

Email: %20jg553 [at] cornell.edu (jg553[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Joyanna was a Food Science Summer Scholar in the MQIP lab.  She was a student at Liberty University in Lynchburg, VA majoring in biochemistry.  While here, she characterized the microbial diversity of freshly pasteurized milk using rpoB subtyping methods.

Jenn Gomez

Biology, A&S, 2006

Email: jig22 [at] cornell.edu (jig22[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Jenn worked with Sarita Raengpradub on acid and charcoal stress in L. monocytogenes.

Michael Gray

Email: mjg14 [at] cornell.edu (mjg14[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Mike worked on characterizing the growth and survival of Vibrio parahaemolyticus isolates under stress and examined the cytopathogenicity of Listeria monocytogenes strains. 

Matt Hagerman

B.S. Molecular Biology

Email: mrh235 [at] cornell.edu (mrh235[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Matt worked on the environmental sampling project with Rachel, Travis, and Laura. The project focused on the collection, isolation, and molecular characterization of foodborne pathogens with a specific interest in the mdh gene in isolated samples of E. coli.

Miquela Hanselma

Undergraduate Student (B.S., Animal Science)

Email: mlh298 [at] cornell.edu (mlh298[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Miquela is working with David Kent and Rachel Evanowski on the isolation and characterization of sporeformers from various dairy environments.

Kristin Hardy

Undergraduate Student (B.S., Nutritional Sciences)

Email: kdh55 [at] cornell.edu (kdh55[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Kristin was studying the growth characteristics of pasteurized milk isolates at various temperatures.

Zhisheng Her

On an attachment program to Cornell University in the summer of 2002, at the end of the 2nd year of a 3 year Biotechnology Course at Ngee Ann Polytechnic, Singapore, Zhisheng's research interests revolved around the ecology and evolution of Listeria monocytogenes.

John Hernandez

John did an 8 week training program in the Boor Lab as a visiting High School Research Assistant from Puerto Rico.  He worked with the Rsbp gene.

Clint Hervert

B.S. '14, Food Science

Email: cjh263 [at] cornell.edu (cjh263[at]cornell[dot]edu)

As an undergraduate, Clint worked alongside Rachel Miller (Ph.D. Candidate) in the characterization of toxin genes produced by Bacillus cereus group organisms.

Molly Higgins

Undergraduate Summer Scholar

Email: mh2333 [at] cornell.edu (mh2333[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Molly, a Food Science undergraduate at the University of Missouri, was here as a Summer Scholar studying the germination of spore-forming bacteria in pasteurized milk.

Jessica Hof

Email: jrh36 [at] cornell.edu (jrh36[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Jessica was working to sequence the gene panB (a “housekeeping gene”) in several Salmonella serotypes. This work is part of a larger project being done by Sharinne Sukhnanand in the Laboratories of Food Microbiology and Food Safety to look at the evolutionary relationships among different Salmonella serotypes.

Karen James

Email: kej24 [at] cornell.edu (kej24[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Karen worked with Matt Garner on investigating the acid survival of Listeria monocytogenes. She currently attends Tufts medical school.

Alana Jonat

Email: amj25 [at] cornell.edu (amj25[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Alana was testing the hypothesis that the bovine udder pathogen Streptococcus uberis could be a contagious pathogen and transmitted from cow to cow.  This work was part of a larger project on the molecular epidemiology of bovineStreptococci being done by R. N. Zadoks in the Laboratories of Food Microbiology and Food Safety in collaboration with Cornell's Quality Milk Production Services.

Anthea Jones

Bachelor of Veterinary Science 2005, University of Queensland, Australia

Email: s342934 [at] student.uq.edu.au (s342934[at]student[dot]uq[dot]edu[dot]au)

Anthea was a visiting vet student from Australia working on L. monocytogenes transmission in cattle. She performed evolutionary analysis on the actA and inlA genes from isolates collected during a longitudinal study of cows from a herd at Cornell, as well as developing both L. mono specific and non-specific immunological assays for use in cattle.

Shalini Kamodia

B.S. 2010, Cellular and Molecular Biology, University of Michigan

Email: sk2336 [at] cornell.edu (sk2336[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Shalini was a summer scholar working with Matt Ranieri.  Their project focused on a seven gene MLST for Salmonella.

Ivy Tan Mui Khosh

Diploma '01., Ngee Ann Polytechnic in Singapore

Email: clarivy [at] hotmail.com (clarivy[at]hotmail[dot]com)

Ivy visited our lab in the summer of 2000 to learn molecular techniques as part of an 8 week training program.

Carl Henrik Klasén

Undergraduate Student

Email: ck739 [at] cornell.edu (ck739[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Carl will work on L. Monocytogenes. Traditional microbiology and molecular microbiology. Working and developing tools such as Tn-mutagenesis and plasmids to then test importance of genes in LIPI-1 and try to detect cofactor working with PrfA. 

Ashley Kossakowski

Undergraduate Student

Email: ak782 [at] cornell.edu (ak782[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Stephen Lee

Email: sl266 [at] cornell.edu (sl266[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Stephen's interests were in the determination of how the expression of thermostable direct hemolysin (TDH) contritutes to the pathogenesis of Vibrio parahaemolyticus O3:K6. He worked on the construction of tdh promoter-lacZ fusion.

Maria Listiyani:

Undergraduate Research Assistant

Email: mal278 [at] cornell.edu (mal278[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Maria was a Food Science Summer Scholar in the MQIP lab.  She identified bacterial groups contributing to the preliminary incubation counts of raw milk and determining their effects on the self-life of the final product.

Fok Moon Lum

Email: fml8 [at] cornell.edu (fml8[at]cornell[dot]edu)

On an attachment program to Cornell University in the summer of 2002, at the end of the 2nd year of a 3 year Biotechnology Course at Ngee Ann Polytechnic, Singapore, Fok Moon's research interests concerned the characterization ofVibrio parahaemolyticus.

Kathryn Magee

Undergraduate Summer Scholar

Email: kam459 [at] cornell.edu (kam459[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Kathryn, a biology undergraduate at the Rochester Institute of Technology, was a 2015 Food Science Summer Scholar investigating phage resistance in Listeria monocytogenes.

Leighanne Marley

Email: ltm2 [at] cornell.edu (ltm2[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Leighanne was working on the seafood pathogen Vibrio papraheamolyticus. She was involved with the project conducted by Marie Yeung.

Steven Maron

Food Science 2007, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Cornell University

Email: sbm32 [at] cornell.edu (sbm32[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Steve worked with Renato Orsi on studying the evolution of Listeria monocytogenes. He was also a 2004 Food Science Summer Scholar.

Kelly Martin

Biological Sciences 2006, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Cornell University

Email: kem38 [at] cornell.edu (kem38[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Kelly worked on the distribution and biological significance of the truncated internalin in L. monocytogenes. She was also a 2004 Food Science Summer Scholar.

Rella Moag

Email: rcm43 [at] cornell.edu (rcm43[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Rella was a 2006 Food Science Summer Scholar. She worked in the Milk Quality Improvement lab, designing a survey on raw milk consumption that will be distributed to New York State dairy farmers.

Bess Moffatt

Email: evm2 [at] cornell.edu (evm2[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Bess assisted Celine Nadon in data collection and also characterized Listeria monocytogenes isolates from the New York Department of Health for the actA and hly genes. 

Jabril Mohamed

Undergraduate Student

Email: jam929 [at] cornell.edu (jam929[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Jabril will be working with Rachel Evanowski on the isolation and manipulation of spore formers in raw milk samples taken from several locations.

Marie Carmen Montes

B.S. '01, University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez

Email: marie_carmen_montes [at] yahoo.com (marie_carmen_montes[at]yahoo[dot]com)

Marie spent the summer of 2000 in our laboratory as a participant in the Cornell University Undergraduate Summer Research Program.  Her project involved molecular subtyping of human L. monocytogenes isolates to further explore the specific characteristics of L. monocytogenes which cause human disease.

Matthew Moore

Undergraduate Research Assistant

Matthew was an undergraduate research assistant working under Dr. Teresa Bergholz.  

Dillon Murray

Undergraduate Student

Email: dsm233 [at] cornell.edu (dsm233[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Dillon worked on the synergistic effects of growth inhibitors of Listeria monocytogenes in cold smoked salmon.

Alan Noah

Email: amn11 [at] cornell.edu (amn11[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Alan is the editorial assistant for a nutritional company.

Shona Ort

Email: sb06 [at] cornell.edu (sb06[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Working on a B.S. in animal science at Cornell University

Jon Overdevest

BS '04, Biological Sciences, Cornell University

Email: jbo24 [at] cornell.edu (jbo24[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Jon worked on probing the ecology and evolution of Listeria spp. other than Listeria monocytogenes, with a particular focus on the ecology of L. seeligeri.

Madeleine Parish

Undergraduate (B.S., Food Science)

Email: mmp78 [at] cornell.edu (mmp78[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Madeleine assists with media and labware preparation for experimental use.

Leia Parrish

Undergraduate Research Assistant

Email: lmp269 [at] cornell.edu (lmp269[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Leia is studying the effect of Bacillus weihenstephanensis growth on pasteurized milk quality and spoilage. View Leia's LinkedIn profile.

Clayton Pehrson

Email: sl9gb [at] cc.usu.edu (sl9gb[at]cc[dot]usu[dot]edu)

Clayton worked in the lab as a participant in the 2002 Summer Scholar Program, developing a protocol for the isolation of Streptococcus uberis from soil, fecal, and other samples using selective and differential media. He will receive his Bachelors degree in Food Science at Utah State University in 2003.

Marilia Pena

Email: mariliapena2002 [at] gmail.com (mariliapena2002[at]gmail[dot]com)

Marilia was a Food Science Summer Scholar working on her undergraduate degree in Microbiology.  She explored the detection and characterization of Listeria monocytogenes-specific bacteriophages on dairy farms.

Mary Ann Pohl

BS '05, Biological Sciences, Cornell University

Email: map74 [at] cornell.edu (map74[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Mary Ann was a Hughes Scholar and Presidential Research Scholar and worked to probe tissue specificity in bovine listeriosis.

Sam Reichler

B.S. '15, Food Science

Email: sjr267 [at] cornell.edu (sjr267[at]cornell[dot]edu)

As an undergrad, Sam worked on the cold-growth characterization of sporeformers isolated from pasteurized fluid milk and on challenge studies for mold growth and detection in Greek yogurt and cheese.  He also worked with PhD student Steph Masiello.

Katrina Rodriguez

Undergraduate (B.S., Food Science)

Email: kmr246 [at] cornell.edu (kmr246[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Katrina assists with media and labware preparation for experimental use.

Lauren Saunders

Email: lps7 [at] cornell.edu (lps7[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Lauren was studying the bovine pathogen Streptococcus uberis in cow environments to discover how this disease is transmitted. This is part of a project on bovine Streptococci conducted by Ruth Zadoks.

Karl "Rat" Schilke

BS Winter 2004, Food Science, Oregon State University

Rat was a participant in the 2003 Summer Scholars Program and worked with Sharinne Sukhnanand on Salmonellae evolution.

Daniel Seigerman

Email: das94 [at] cornell.edu (das94[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Danny was characterizing the survival and growth of selected Vibrio parahaemolyticus strains and colonal groups under different stress conditions.

Puja H. Shah

B.S. 2010, Cornell University

Email: phs58 [at] cornell.edu (phs58[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Puja was helping to study the effects of growth inhibitors to determine the metabolic basis for synergistic inhibition of Listeria monocytogenes in smoked salmon.

Magenta Sim

Email: vicmag_14 [at] yahoo.com (vicmag_14[at]yahoo[dot]com)

Magenta helped Sharinne with the Streptococcus agalactiae project, and assisted with the Listeria monocytogenes typing project.

Tracy Sinnott

Email: tas35 [at] cornell.edu (tas35[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Tracy was a sophomore food science major who worked with Belgin Dogan, learning PCR techniques. 

Paige Smith

B.S 2009, Nutrition, Case Western Reserve University

Email: pds9 [at] case.edu (pds9[at]case[dot]edu)

Paige worked with Yesim Soyer verifying the purE gene is under positive selection in a Salmonella isolate set.

Shanna Smith

Undergraduate Student (B.S., Biological Sciences)

Email: sns72 [at] cornell.edu (sns72[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Shanna worked with Rachel Evanowski during Summer 2016 isolating and characterizating sporeformers from various farms.

Mary Sonnen

Email: sonn7309 [at] uidaho.edu (sonn7309[at]uidaho[dot]edu)

Mary was a 2006 Food Science Summer Scholar. She worked in the Milk Quality Improvement lab, concentrating on sources of Bacillus contamination in mik. She also studied the relationship between pasteurization temperatures and fluid milk shelf life.

Laura Spoor

The Royal Veterinary College, London, UK

Email: lspoor [at] rvc.ac.uk (lspoor[at]rvc[dot]ac[dot]uk)

Laura was part of the Cornell CVM's Veterinary Leadership Program and worked to characterize Multi-drug Resistant Salmonella associated with cattle.

Sumarlin

Biotechnology 2005, Ngee Ann Polytechnic, Singapore

Email: sumarlins [at] yahoo.com (sumarlins[at]yahoo[dot]com)

Sumarlin was also a visiting Singaporean student working with Sharinne Sukhnanand and Sam Alcaine on the Zoonosis Research Unit's Salmonella project.

Kin Hup Tan

Biotechnology 2004, Ngee Ann Polytechnic, Singapore

Email: iamhuppy [at] yahoo.com.sg (iamhuppy[at]yahoo[dot]com[dot]sg)

Hup was a visiting scholar from Singapore. He worked with LeRoy on: 1) inlA sequencing of bovine fecal isolates to detect the presence of a premature stop codon which may enhance the ability of L. monocytogenes to be shed fecally and/or to establish a carrier state, and 2) sigB sequencing of Listeria spp. isolates from pristine and urban environments.

Laura Tessendorf

Email: lat13 [at] cornell.edu (lat13[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Laura currently serves in the United States Army as a second lieutenant.

Jeffrey Tokman

B.S. '15, Biology conc. Microbiology

Email: jit7 [at] cornell.edu (jit7[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Jeffrey is working on characterizing novel groups of listeriaphages and studying their infection kinetics.

Thu Hang Truong

As an undergraduate office assistant, Thu provided general administrative assistance to the lab from 1999 to 2002.

Art Turko

Biological Sciences (Pre-Med) 2004, College of Arts and Sciences

Email: at233 [at] cornell.edu (at233[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Art was utilizing micribiological and genetic techniques to sequence and analyze a series of Listeria monocytogenes isolates for the Cornell-CDC Listeria subtyping study.  The first gene to be studied was actA and is responsible for L. monocytogenes movement through host cells.

Matthew Vernon

Email: lps7 [at] cornell.edu (lps7[at]cornell[dot]edu)

As an Undergraduate Research Assistant in the Lab, Matthew worked with Ruth Zadoks on characterizing Streptococcus canis and Streptococcus aureus isolates of animal origin.

Rachel Willems

Email: rmw11 [at] cornell.edu (rmw11[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Rachel worked in Dr. Boor's lab as a Undergraduate Research Assistant from 1999 to 2001.  She went on to pursue her Master's of Public Health (MPH) at the University of Michigan.

Sarach Wongsuntornpoj

B.S. Biology, Mahidol University

Email: sw2 [at] cornell.edu (sw2[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Development and characterization of phage libraries for emerging salmonella endemic in Thailand.

Jessica Wooten

B.S. Nutrition (Dietetics) 2013, North Carolina A&T State University

Email: jmwooten [at] ncat.edu (jmwooten[at]ncat[dot]edu)

Jessica used the Multi-Locus Seqence Typing method to sequence seven housekeeping genes of Shiga Toxin- Producing E.coli. She examined STEC from beef cattle pastures and pristine environments and find differences in genes that could show how they related, analyze if soil and water from these environments were reservoirs for E.coli and to examine if genes were moving between environments.

Yumin Xu

Undergraduate Student (B.S., Food Science)

Email: yx254 [at] cornell.edu (yx254[at]cornell[dot]edu)

Yumin worked with Silin Tang,Ph.D. 2015, on characterizing the phenotypes of psychrotolerant sporeformers isolated from fluid milk and assisted with genome sequencing data analysis.