Other Projects

Oligotrophic - The Board Game

During my PhD, I had the pleasure of assisting a fellow graduate student, Quinn Washburn (board game designer and scientist), with the design of a board game to teach students about marine microbial ecology: Oligotrophic. Our lab developed high school and middle school-level curricula to go with this board game to help science teachers teach their students about the microscopic organisms that inhabit the ocean and are key for the proper functioning of the planet. The game and its associated curriculum were published in The Science Teaching Association in 2021. You can read more about it at this link. 

The game, fun and playable for ages 12+, can be purchased from The Game Crafter; the plans are available to print for free on Board Game Geek. Resources for teachers to go with the game are available - please email me for more information.

Cold-tolerant Vibrios

I was involved in a research project looking for cold-tolerant species of bacteria. In the course of this project, we discovered a novel species of Vibrio from near-shore marine sediment. Sequencing its genome (all the DNA in the cell) resulted in the discovery that there were other, undescribed species of Vibrio that were related to this new species that were also cold-tolerant. These species shared similar genomic properties, including hallmark genes for inhabiting the gut of a eukaryotic host. The paper can be found at this link.

Undergraduate Research

My senior research project while an undergraduate at Geneva College involved culturing microbes from a nearby creek that was affected by acid mine drainage. One of the microbes cultured from this project was identified as a novel species from the Janthinobacterium genus. Members of this genus have been found to produce novel antimicrobial compounds in the past. We sequenced the genome of this new isolate and discovered multiple genes that might be novel antimicrobials present in its genome. The genome announcement paper can be found at this link.