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.
December 19, 2019
Wishing you happy holidays and all the best for the year ahead!
December 9, 2019
Gabriella Pinto and Jared Pavlock won undergraduate research grants to support their research projects in Spring 2010. Congratulations!
December 7, 2019
Congratulations to a Ph.D. candidate Runan Yan for winning a competitive research grant awarded by the Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences!
November 18, 2019
Emma Mills awarded a National Association of Flavors and Food-Ingredient Systems 2019 Scholarship Award for Outstanding Academic Achievement - Congratulations for a well-deserved recognition!
November 11, 2019
Kovac lab was well represented at this year's Allegheny Branch American Society for Microbiology meeting that took place at the Saint Francis University in Loretto, PA.
November 2, 2019
Join us in the FDSC 497 - Foodborne Pathogen Genomic Epidemiology course offered in Spring 2020!
October 17, 2019
Congratulations to Gabriella Pinto and Jingzhang (Barry) Feng for winning Department of Food Science undergraduate research awards. Gabriella and Barry are senior undergraduate students majoring in Food Science. Thanks to the Department for a generous support of our undergraduate researchers!
October 15, 2019
Food. It’s one of those things that connects us all. From jet-set billionaires to slum-dwelling street urchins, everyone needs to eat. Yet, in our modern, technocratic, globalized world, very few people have a direct relationship with the production of the food they need to survive. The vast majority of us buy our food from others, whether at a farm stand or supermarket shelf, which means there is almost always supply chain involved. And along that supply chain, between harvest, storage, processing, transportation, and preparation, there are lots of potential opportunities for food to pick up harmful contaminants.
October 2, 2019
Cassidy Prince has learned a great deal about foodborne pathogens while working in the lab of Jasna Kovac, Penn State assistant professor of food science. She also has learned how gratifying it can be to pass what she has learned onto others.
September 21, 2019
Doctoral candidate Mara Cloutier is passionate about researching microbiomes and opening up this rapidly expanding field of study to others through the Data Analysis Working Group. Our Ph.D. student Taejung Chung was one of the co-founders of the DAWG.
August 23, 2019
Congratulations to Ellie for publishing the first paper resulting from her 7,000 miles of sampling trips!
July 29, 2019
Congratulations to mBiome PhD student in Food Science Laura Rolon for winning a NE SARE Graduate Student Grant.
July 1, 2019
Congratulations to Gabriella Pinto for a College of Agricultural Sciences undergraduate research award.
June 28, 2019
A two-week training on foodborne pathogen detection methods, focused on dairy, will help educators and government agencies in Ethiopia ensure the safety of dairy products in that country.
May 1, 2019
Jasna Kovac, assistant professor of food science in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences, recently was named recipient of the Institut Merieux Young Investigator Award in Antimicrobial Resistance from the International Association for Food Protection.
February 14, 2019
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Employing advanced genetic-tracing techniques and sharing the data produced in real time could limit the spread of bacteria — Bacillus cereus — which cause foodborne illness, according to researchers who implemented whole-genome sequencing of a pathogen-outbreak investigation.
December 15, 2018
Congratulations to Jingzhang (Barry) Feng for a College of Agricultural Sciences undergraduate research grant award.
November 28, 2018
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Food safety specialists in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences will collaborate with scientists at Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia and Kansas State University on a project to improve the safety and quality of Ethiopian dairy foods.
November 23, 2018
Thanks to all the students and faculty of the University of Puerto Rico - Aguadilla for attending the whole genome sequencing workshop on November 17, 2018.
