The major focus of my laboratory is the development of diagnostic assays and workflows for large-scale applications needed by the beef, poultry, and seafood industries. Biolog‘s Rainbow Agar chromogenic properties provide an easy method for identification of Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC) from food enrichments and is an important step in our STEC confirmation workflow.

My research focuses on investigating chemical pollutants’ impact on a wide range of ecosystems. Biolog‘s GEN III plates helped to identify strains of bacteria active in remediating leachate-metal-contaminated soil and my research showed which selective blends of microbial species were most effective in remediation.

I am a translational taxonomist of bacterial plant pathogens. We study the diversity of organisms to first understand how diversity makes a difference in epidemics and then how we can we use that understanding to create management strategies for growers. We recently used Biolog’s GEN III plates to phenotype type and field strains needed to identify soft rot Pectobacteriaceae from symptomatic potato tubers and stems from growers’ fields.