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!
April 5, 2022
Our students Erin Sullivan, Tyler Chandross-Cohen, Kayla Kimble, Laura Rolon, Anjali Sapre, And CJ Pedone presented their research projects at the annual Penn State Gamma Sigma Delta research symposium. Congratulations to Tyler, Kayla, Laura, Anjali, and CJ on their poster awards!
October 14, 2021
Study to enhance CDC’s capacity to rapidly detect emerging infectious disease agents
June 1, 2021
Are you interested in a postdoc in microbial genomics? We are looking to fill the position by August 1st.
May 2, 2021
Congratulations to graduate student Priscilla Sinclair and undergraduate student Jared Pavlock, Cassidy Prince, Madison Ruston for graduation! Good luck to Priscilla in her new job at PepsiCo and to Cassidy Prince in the Microbiology Ph.D. program at Cornell University. Good luck also to our alumni Xiaoqing (Ellie) Tan in the Microbiology Ph.D. program at Cornell University and to Xiaoxuan (Meg) Shi in the Food Science PhD program at Cornell University!
March 24, 2021
Congratulations to our undergraduate student Cassidy Prince for the NSF GRFP honorable mention and for becoming a Fulbright semifinalist!
March 8, 2021
Runan Yan and Gabriella Pinto worked with the Dandelion Chocolate team (https://store.dandelionchocolate.com) to evaluate the efficacy of the different time-temperature combinations in the inactivation of Salmonella on cocoa beans.
December 10, 2020
November 5, 2020
Apply to join us as a Masters student in Fall 2021: https://foodscience.psu.edu/graduate/apply
October 19, 2020
Naomi Niyah was awarded the 1st place for the presentation of her research poster in a category Graduate Poster Presentations at the America Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES) National Conference. Congratulations, Naomi!
October 19, 2020
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — A rapid and simple method for testing the efficacy of antibacterial drugs on infectious microbes has been developed and validated by a team of Penn State researchers.
August 26, 2020
We are hiring a part-time (20h/week) research assistant to start on October 1st, 2020.
June 17, 2020
Best wishes to our alumni accepted to PhD programs at Cornell and Baylor College of Medicine.
June 1, 2020
Our undergraduate student Cassidy Prince is developing a food microbiology themed coloring book. If you are curious about an invisible world of microbes in food, please download the first page on a topic of endospores and have fun coloring.
May 30, 2020
Naomi Niyah received an NSF Honorable Mention in an area of microbial biology. Naomi is investigating the use of genomic markers to predict the toxicity of Bacillus cereus to human cells and study their evolution using comparative genomics coupled with cell culture and microbiological phenotypic assays.
May 12, 2020
Visit our YouTube channel run by students excited about creating food science content for a broad general audience!
May 8, 2020
Gabriella Pinto provides a great example of what undergraduate research can do for a student. The Penn State food science major, who graduates this month, is headed for a good job armed with a wealth of experience and knowledge from her research, which gives her a leg up on her career.
March 28, 2020
Since March 16, our lab is working online to help reduce the spread of SARS-CoV- 2, the virus causing COVID-19 #flattenthecurve
March 28, 2020
Jasna and Kerry visited our lab's research collaborators at Addis Abab University. They made it back to the U.S. just in time to practice social distancing.
February 24, 2020
Penn State Microbiome center will offer a workshop on the functional annotation of microbiome data. Drs. Yana Bromberg and Chengsheng Zhu will present the workshop on March 5 and 6. Join the group and learn how to analyze your own data!
February 11, 2020
A Penn State Microbiome Center workshop on the latest Illumina technology: "Navigating the latest NGS Technologies for Microbiome research: From Sample preparation through analysis". Save the date: Friday, February 21st, 2020, from 1 pm – 3 pm, Food Science room 252
January 28, 2020
Jasna is giving a seminar "Toward microbiome-informed detection and control of foodborne pathogens in the food supply chain" on Wednesday, January 29th, 4 pm, at The Ohio State University's Parker Food Science and Technology Building.
January 28, 2020
Priscilla will give a talk on "Combating Listeria monocytogenes Growth in Tree Fruit Packinghouse Biofilms" at the Mid-Atlantic Fruit and Vegetable Convention.
December 20, 2019
Congratulations to Cassidy Prince, a recipient of the University Student Engagement Network Grant. The grant will support Cassidy's international food safety work in Ethiopia in March 2020.
