Kovac Lab
Our research at Penn State is focused on precision food safety.
We are integrating (meta)genomic and phenotypic methods to better understand how microbial genetic background and environmental factors influence epidemiology, pathogenic potential and antimicrobial resistance of foodborne pathogens.
News
December 17, 2024
College of Ag Sciences celebrates faculty, staff achievements in research
Six research teams received high-impact research publication awards, which recognize peer-reviewed research demonstrating significant impact. A paper from Kovac lab: “The composition of environmental microbiota in three tree-fruit packing facilities changed over seasons and contained taxa indicative of L. monocytogenes contamination,” published in the journal Microbiome was awarded a high impact award in the area of Nutritional and Food Security.
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November 8, 2024
REEU students and their graduate student mentors present summer research projects at the ABASM
Summer REEU program students Fabiola Quintana-Perez and Brian Praul presented their research with their graduate student mentors Amelia Navarre and Tyler Chandross-Cohen at the annual meeting of the Allegheny Branch of the American Society for Microbiology.
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November 8, 2024
Congratulations to Amelia for the poster award at the ABASM
Congratulations to our MS student Amelia Navarre for winning the 2nd place award in the graduate poster division at the annual meeting of the Allegheny Branch of the American Society for Microbiology!
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September 19, 2024
Wastewater monitoring can detect foodborne illness
Results of a new study suggest sewage monitoring could provide early warning of foodborne disease outbreaks to public health authorities
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