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.
June 15, 2023
Jasna gave a talk "Context matters – the role of microbiota in Campylobacter survival and culturability" at the Slovenian Microbiological Society Seminar Series.
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!
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.
