March 15, 2024
Jasna gave a talk "Context matters – the role of microbiota in Campylobacter survival and culturability" at the Slovenian Microbiological Society Seminar Series.
March 11, 2024
Congratulations to Auja for being selected as a finalist selected as a finalist for The Graduate School’s first 3 Minute Thesis competition
March 2, 2024
Jasna gave an invited talk on genome-based forecasting of Bacillus cereus group phenotypes at the Research Workshop on Bacillus in Clinical and Agricultural Environments at Umea University.
February 16, 2024
Jasna provided insight into Listeria in the New York Times article on Listeria contamination of soft cheeses
January 31, 2024
Auja Bywater received the NSF IGE Sustainable Development Program Scholarship to support her research on hydroponic systems at the Charles Darwin Foundation in the Galápagos, Ecuador.
January 31, 2024
The ASM Peggy Cotter Travel Award Program provides funds for outstanding early career Branch members to attend ASM Microbe.
January 24, 2024
An estimated 1,600 people in the U.S. contract a serious infection from Listeria bacteria in food each year and, of those individuals, about 260 people die, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Penn State researchers may now better understand how the bacteria, called Listeria monocytogenes, survive and persist in fruit-packing plants by evading and surviving sanitizers.
January 4, 2024
Congratulations to our recent PhD graduate Taejung Chung on his ORISE postdoctoral fellowship at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Agricultural Research Service (ARS) SCINet and Artificial Intelligence Center of Excellence. Taejung's research will involve applying machine learning methods for the mitigation of antimicrobial resistance in food-borne pathogens associated with chicken production.
December 9, 2023
Luke LaBorde and Jasna Kovac Receive were the 2023 Integrated Team Award recipients. The Integrated Team Award recognizes an integrated research and teaching and/or outreach team that has demonstrated innovation in translating research into outputs for dissemination and implementation through applied research-based activities that resulted in partnerships and engagement across the college and beyond.
November 9, 2023
Congratulations to Tyler Chandross-Cohen for passing his comprehensive exam and being awarded the 2023 Student Leadership Award sponsored by the Penn State Food Science Industry Group!
November 9, 2023
Congratulations to Ashley Ohstrom and Tyler Chandross-Cohen for winning first and second-place poster awards at the Allegany branch of the American Society of Microbiology (ABASM) Annual Meeting!
October 11, 2023
Jasna gave a talk at the Michigan State University in the Food Science and Human Nutrition seminar series
October 6, 2023
Congratulations to Dr. Taejung Chung for successfully defending his dissertation titled: "Comparative Genomic and Phenotypic Analyses of Bacillus cereus sensu stricto biovar Thuringiensis and non-Thuringiensis.".
September 8, 2023
Taejung Chung was awarded the Carolee Bull Leadership Award for his leadership of the One Health Microbiome Center Data Analysis Working Group (DAWG). DAWG develops microbiome data analyses workshops for the Microbiome Center community to build the capacity of the community for microbiome data analyses. Congratulations, Taejung!
July 17, 2023
Tyler Chandross-Cohen presented his research "Growth potential of Bacillus cereus group strains from different phylogenetic groups in a dairy food model.” at the 2023 International Association for Food Protection Annual Meeting in Toronto.
July 16, 2023
The Outstanding Young Scientist Award in honor of Samuel Cate Prescott honors an individual who has provided significant, early-career research contributions that advance the science of food.
May 3, 2023
Jasna gave a talk "Source attribution, survival, and culturability of Campylobacter" at the United States Department of Agriculture Food Safety and Inspection Service Office of Public Health Science Seminar Series
April 9, 2023
Our undergraduate student Anna Sarubbi was awarded the 1st place poster award in the Undergraduate Division, Food Systems area. Our PhD student Tyler Chandross-Cohen won the 1st place poster award in the Graduate Division, Microbiology and Microbiome Systems area. Congratulation!
April 5, 2023
Jasna gave a talk in the food safety seminar series at the University of Nebraska Lincoln.
April 3, 2023
The Penn State Global Early Career Faculty Award recognizes innovative international research projects, excellence in global scholarship, or curricular and experiential leadership surrounding global learning for a tenure-earning faculty member at Penn State.
March 17, 2023
Laura Rolon defended her dissertation titled "The role of environmental microbiota in the persistence of Listeria monocytogenes in food processing facilities" on February 16th, 2023 and Runan Yan defended her dissertation titled "The investigation of the effects of chicken meat microbiome on survivability and culturability of Campylobacter" on March 17, 2023. Congratulations!
December 21, 2022
We Are... the Microbiome Center is a new feature series that celebrates the people of the Center and the collaborative spirit we bring to “making life better” at the Center each day. Our PhD candidate Taejung Chung was highlighted in the inaugural issue of the feature series.
December 21, 2022
Taejung Chung was awarded a Graduate Student Competitive Grants Program by the College of Agricultural Sciences to support his research project "Comparative analysis of survivability, germinability, and cytotoxicity of Bacillus cereus s.s. and Bacillus cereus s.s biovar Thuringiensis spores in conditions simulating human gastrointestinal tract". Congratulations, Taejung!
November 9, 2022
The Early Achievement in Research Award recognizes early-career faculty—either tenure-track or non-tenure track holding the rank of Assistant and within the first 6 years of their research career within CAS at Penn State—who have demonstrated an impressive level of independent achievement (e.g., extramural funding, publications, intellectual property, collaborative research, etc.) in their career, including prior work as a graduate student and postdoc, through extraordinary accomplishments, service, and leadership both internal and external to the college and university.
November 2, 2022
The water-energy-food (WEF) Nexus is an integrative framework for novel research to address complex challenges of sustainable and equitable resource management, economic development, and climate resilience. Graduate student fellowships are currently available at Penn State University for doctoral work on the WEF Nexus.
October 7, 2022
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has funded a $750,000 grant for research by a team of Penn State scientists to strengthen infectious disease surveillance, detection and preparedness by developing an accessible bioinformatics platform and tools for utilization by the CDC’s Laboratory Response Network.
June 23, 2022
We are excited to welcome undergraduate students Sarah, Dariel, and Jaime to our Department and lab for a summer research experience. Students come to us through a USDA-NIFA-funded REEU program led by the faculty from the Penn State Department of Food Science and a NSF-funded REU program led by the faculty from the University of Puerto Rico and Penn State.
May 6, 2022
Congratulations to Anjali, Erin, Tyler, Kayla, CJ, Makayla, Conner, and Katie who are graduating in 2022 and moving on to exciting next steps in their careers.
May 1, 2022
Kovac lab receives a $605,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to study how microbial biofilms protect Listeria monocytogenes, the bacterium that causes the deadly foodborne illness listeriosis.
April 22, 2022
The Penn State Graduate School sponsors a limited number of University Graduate Fellowships (UGF). This prestigious fellowship is available to most promising incoming students. Congratulations to our incoming PhD student Tyler Chandross-Cohen for being awarded the UGF!