Overview
The Graduate Group in Microbiology is composed of 53 faculty from diverse departments, colleges, and schools (Plant and Microbial Biology; Molecular and Cell Biology; Public Health; Civil and Environmental Engineering; Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering; Environmental Science, Policy, and Management; Nutritional Sciences and Toxicology; Optometry; and Integrative Biology) and is administered by the Department of Plant and Microbial Biology.
The group awards a Ph.D. degree in Microbiology. Students in the group have access to diverse disciplines through an integrated program of study that allows each student to pursue specialized interests. Students gain a breadth of understanding of microbiology from the molecular to the cellular levels of organization, as well as the interactions of microbes—beneficial and pathogenic—with other organisms.
Graduate Program
Microbiology: PhD
Faculty and Instructors
+ Indicates this faculty member is the recipient of the Distinguished Teaching Award.
Faculty
Rodrigo P. P. Almeida, Associate Professor. Disease ecology, vector, plant disease, Xylella fastidiosa, emerging.
Research Profile
Lisa Alvarez-Cohen, Professor. Environmental microbiology, biodegradation of environmental contaminants, microbial carbon cycling, molecular tools for microbial ecology, metagenomics, biological hazardous waste treatment, bioremediation of groundwater pollutants such as PCE, TCE, DCE, VC, TCA, DCA, MTBE, BTEX, PBDEs, NDMA, Dioxane, PFOS, PFOA, fire-fighting foams.
Research Profile
Rachel B. Brem, Associate Adjunct Professor. Genetics of regulatory variation.
Research Profile
Steven Brenner, Professor. Molecular biology, computational biology, evolutionary biology, bioengineering, structural genomics, computational genomics, cellular activity, cellular functions, personal genomics.
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Thomas D. Bruns, Professor. Microbial biology, plant biology, fungi, nucleic acid sequences, basidomycetes, ectomycorrhizal fungi communities.
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Bob B. Buchanan, Professor. Biotechnology, environmental policy, plant biology, thioredoxin.
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Jamie Cate, Professor. Molecular basis for protein synthesis by the ribosome, RNA, antibiotics, a thermophilic bacterium, escherichia coli.
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Michelle Chang, Associate Professor.
John Coates, Professor.
Laurent Coscoy, Associate Professor. Immunology, viruses, viral infection, immune responses, immune evasion.
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John Eugene Dueber, Assistant Professor. Synthetic biology, Metabolic Engineering.
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Mary K. Firestone, Professor. Soils, environmental policy, environmental science, policy and management, wildlife, miicrobial biology.
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Suzanne Fleiszig, Professor. Immunology, eye, microbiology, infectious disease, corneal physiology, tear film physiology, bacterial pathogenesis, contact lenses, pseudomonas aeruginosa, epithelial cell biology, innate immunity.
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N. Louise Glass, Professor. Biofuels, biotechnology, fungal genetics, fungal cell biology.
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Britt Glaunsinger, Associate Professor. Virology, gene expression, herpesvirus.
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Igor V. Grigoriev, Adjunct Professor. Genomics, fungi, algae, eukaryotes, computational biology, bioinformatics, genome annotation.
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Eva Harris, Professor. Public health, infectious diseases.
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Jay Keasling, Professor. Microorganism metabolic engineering for environmentally friendly product .
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Nicole King, Associate Professor. Genetics, developmental biology, biology, choanoflagellates, multicellularity, evolution of animals, comparative genomics, eukaryotes, host-microbe interactions, bacterial signals.
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Arash Komeili, Associate Professor. Microbiology, Biomineralization, bacterial organelles, Magnetic Nanoparticles.
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Jennifer Lewis, Assistant Adjunct Professor. Plant-pathogen interactions, plant immunity, type III effector proteins.
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Steven E. Lindow, Professor. Microbial ecology, microbial biology, plant biology, plant frost control, bacterial plant diseases, plant disease epidemiology.
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Fenyong Liu, Professor. Public health, infectious diseases.
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Krishna K. Niyogi, Professor. Genetics, plant and microbial biology, algae, photosynthesis, antioxidants.
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Celine Pallud, Associate Professor. Biogeochemistry, iron reduction, metals and contaminants, soil aggregates, selenium kinetics of organic matter degradation, nitrate reduction, soil and environmental biogeophysics, biogeochemical cycles, fate and transport of nutrients, sulfate reduction, wetland soils, littoral sediments, spatial variation in biogeochemical processes.
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Daniel A. Portnoy, Professor. Mammalian cells, molecular and cellular basis of microbial pathogenesis, defense against infection, listeria monocytogenes, cell biology of infection, mechanisms of secretion.
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Lee Riley, Professor. Public health, infectious diseases, molecular epidemiology, global health, tuberculosis, drug-resistant infections, slum health.
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+ Jasper D. Rine, Professor. Biology, cell biology, DNA replication, gene regulation, saccharomyces cerevisiae, genetic analysis, genome, cholesterol biosynthetic pathway, modification of proteins, prenylated proteins.
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Kathleen Ryan, Associate Professor. Bacterial cell cycle regulation, signal transduction, and regulated proteolysis.
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David Savage, Assistant Professor. Synthetic biology and metabolism.
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Randy W. Schekman, Professor. Saccharomyces cerevisiae, organelle assembly, intracellular protein transport, assembly of cellular organelles, Alzheimer's Disease.
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Michael Shapira, Assistant Professor in Residence. Molecular biology, aging, host-pathogen interactions.
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Kimmen Sjolander, Professor. Computational biology, algorithms, phylogenetic tree reconstruction, protein structure prediction, multiple sequence alignment, evolution, bioinformatics, hidden Markov models, metagenomics, statistical modeling, phylogenomics, emerging and neglected diseases, machine-learning, genome annotation, metagenome annotation, systems biology, functional site prediction, ortholog identification.
Research Profile
Chris Somerville, Professor. Biochemistry, biotechnology, bioenergy, cell biology, biofuels, cell walls, polysaccharides, cellulose, arabidopsis, cellulose synthase.
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Shauna Somerville, Professor. Powdery mildew disease, cell wall integrity sensing, plant-fungal interactions, plant cell walls.
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Chelsea Specht, Associate Professor. Molecular evolution, adaptation, plant systematics, evolution of development (evo-devo), evolution of form and function, plant morphology, comparative phylogenetics, floral developmental evolution, diversification rates.
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Sarah Stanley, Assistant Professor.
Brian J. Staskawicz, Professor. Biotechnology, plant and microbial biology.
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Richard S. Stephens, Professor. Molecular genetics, microbiology, infectious disease, pathogenesis.
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Michiko Taga, Assistant Professor. Molecular biology, genetics, microbial biology, chemical biology, cofactors, nutrient exchange, microbial communities.
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John Taylor, Professor. Evolution, fungi, phylogenomics, mycology, population genomics.
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Matthew Traxler, Assistant Professor.
Danielle Tullman-Ercek, Assistant Professor. Bioenergy, synthetic biology, protein engineering, bionanotechnology.
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Russell E. Vance, Associate Professor. Immunology, microbiology, infectious disease, molecular and cell biology.
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Matthew D. Welch, Professor. Biology, cell motility, the role of the actin cytoskeleton in cell locomotion, shape change, actin filament assembly, bacterial and viral pathogens.
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Mary Wildermuth, Associate Professor.
Patricia Zambryski, Professor. Microbial biology, plant biology, plant intercellular communication via plasmodesmata, Agrobacterium, bacterial type IV secretion.
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Wenjun Zhang, Assistant Professor. Natural product biosynthesis and engineering for health and bioenergy applications.
Affiliated Faculty
Sangwei Lu, Adjunct Professor. Pathogenesis and stress response of Salmonella serovars, foodborne diseases.
Research Profile