Faculty
James Adair
Professor of Material Science and Engineering
Nanoscale materials and phenomena for biological, optical and structural applications, property manipulation via novel chemical pathways for designer particles and materials, colloid and interfacial chemistry, powder characterization, powder…
Istvan Albert
Research Professor of Bioinformatics Bioinformatics, large scale biological data analysis, microarrays and sequence analysis. Scientific programming, algorithm development. Database-driven web development.
Paul Bartell
Chair, Intercollege Graduate Degree Program in Neuroscience; Associate Professor of Avian Biology The regulation of biological clocks in birds at the systems level.
Iliana Baums
Professor of Biology Molecular ecology and evolution of reef invertebrates.
Terrence Bell
Assistant Professor of Phytobiomes Soil and root-associated microbiomes, microbiome assembly, microbiome manipulation, disturbance.
Sheri Berenbaum
Professor of Psychology and Pediatrics Development and neuroendocrine basis of human sex-typed cognition and social behavior.
Jordan Bisanz
Assistant Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology The interface of microbiology and bioinformatics, with approaches including genomics and metabolomics to investigate the interplay of diet, drugs, and the gut microbiome.
Ottar Bjornstad
Huck Chair of Epidemiology; Distinguished Professor of Entomology and Biology; Adjunct Professor in Statistics Population ecology and population dynamics with particular emphasis on mathematical and computational aspects
Mary Ann Bruns
Professor of Soil Microbiology and Biogeochemistry Compositions and functions of microbiomes in agriculture, ecological restoration, and engineered systems for ecosystem service provision and climate change adaptation
Carolee Bull
Director of the Microbiome Center; Professor of Plant Pathology; Bacterial Systematics Head, Department of Plant Pathology and Environmental Microbiology Bacterial systematics, epidemiology, and population biology of bacterial plant pathogens and biological control agents to develop alternatives to synthetic chemicals for plant disease management
Liana Burghardt
Huck Early Career Chair of Root Biology and Rhizosphere Interactions; Assistant Professor of Plant Science
Plant-microbe-climate interactions; the evolution and ecology of legumes and nitrogen-fixing rhizobia; the genomic basis and environment dependence of root, nodule, and mutualism traits; GWAS/transcriptomics/evolve & resequence…
John Carlson
Professor of Molecular Genetics; Director, Schatz Center for Tree Molecular Genetics Genome mapping, including genetic linkage mapping, molecular cytogenetics; studies of genetic diversity in forests.
Estelle Couradeau
Assistant Professor of Ecosystem Science & Management
Sharifa Crandall
Assistant Professor of Plant Pathology and Environmental Microbiology
Drawing from community ecology theory to understand how fungal and oomycete pathogens shape plant disease dynamics, with a focus on root and soil microbiome diversity, structure, and function; how ecological disturbances drive the complex…
Emily Davenport
Assistant Professor of Biology Understanding the complex relationship humans have with our microbiomes, using high-throughput sequencing technologies and novel computational and statistical techniques.
Justin DiAngelo
Assistant Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Francisco Dini-Andreote
Assistant Professor of Plant Science Microbiome, plant-microbe interactions, and community ecology. Harnessing the plant microbiome to enhance protection against biotic and abiotic stresses.
Edward Dudley
Professor of Food Science; Director of E. coli Reference Center Mechanisms driving toxin production in Shiga-toxigenic Escherichia coli; use of genome sequencing to track pathogen transmission during foodborne outbreaks
Yasser El-Manzalawy
Assistant Research Professor of Information Sciences and Technology
Gary Felton
Professor and Department Head of Entomology Plant-herbivore interactions. Adaptive responses of herbivores to plant defenses. Herbivore cues recognized by plants with specific focus on biochemical and molecular analysis of salivary secretions.
Erika Ganda
Assistant Professor of Food Animal Microbiomes Developing practical ways to leverage the microbiome to improve food safety and improve food production animals' production efficiency.
David Geiser
Professor of Mycology Molecular evolutionary genetics of pathogenic and toxigenic fungi.
Kevin Hockett
Huck Early Career Chair; Assistant Professor of Microbial Ecology Biological Control, Biology and Ecology of Plant-Microbe and Plant-Environment Interactions, Microbial Ecology and Population Biology Faculty
Vasant Honavar
Huck Chair in Biomedical Data Sciences and AI; Professor and Edward Frymoyer Chair of Information Sciences and Technology Statistical machine learning algorithms for predictive modeling; modeling and inference of biological networks; characterization and prediction of protein-protein, protein-RNA, and protein-DNA interactions.
María del Mar Jiménez Gasco
Professor of Plant Pathology and Environmental Mictobiology
Seogchan Kang
Professor of Plant Pathology & Environmental Microbiology Genetic and cellular mechanisms underpinning plant-fungal interactions with Arabidopsis thaliana and Fusarium oxysporum as a model system. Molecular genetics and comparative genomics of fungal plant pathogens. Bioinformatics.
Vivek Kapur
Associate Director, Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences; Huck Distinguished Chair in Global Health; Professor of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases The basic mechanisms by which pathogenic microbes successfully infect, colonize, and cause disease in their hosts.
Kenneth Keiler
Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Small RNAs and protein localization in bacterial development and antimicrobial drug discovery.
Joshua Kellogg
Emphasis Area Representative, Molecular Toxicology; Assistant Professor of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences
Development of new metabolomics tools for chemical and biological characterization of complex systems. Discovery of new natural products from plants and microorganisms with novel bioactivity against pathogenic fungi and neglected tropical diseases.…
David Koslicki
Associate Professor of Computer Science and Engineering and Biology Developing efficient algorithms to extract insight from high-throughput sequencing data.
Jasna Kovac
Lester Earl and Veronica Casida Career Development Professor of Food Safety; Assistant Professor of Food Science Integrating epidemiological, microbiological, molecular and omics methods to better understand microbial pathogenic potential, antimicrobial resistance, and epidemiology of foodborne pathogens.
Dajiang Liu
Associate Professor of Public Health Science Developing novel methods to analyze very large scale datasets in order to identify genes that are responsible for disease, understand the disease mechanism, and gain clinical insights.
Hong Ma
Huck Distinguished Research Professor of Plant Molecular Biology; Professor of Biology Plant development under favorable and stressful conditions; phylogeny and evolutionary biology of plant groups containing major crops and ecologically important species.
Jennifer Macalady
Director of the Ecology Institute; Professor of Geosciences
Microbial interactions with earth materials: soils, sediments, solutes, atmospheric gases, minerals, and rocks. Early evolution of Earth’s biosphere, including photosynthesis and sulfur cycling. Microbial ecology, environmental omics, microbial…
Siela Maximova
Research Professor of Plant Biotechnology Co-Director, Endowed Program in the Molecular Biology of Cocoa Molecular basis of plant-pathogen and plant-endophyte interactions. Biotechnology of tree crops. Development of sustainable energy crops.
Timothy McNellis
Associate Professor of Plant Pathology & Environmental Microbiology Genetics, molecular biology and physiology of plant interactions with phytopathogenic bacteria. Signal transduction events involved in plant disease resistance. Genetic control of plant hypersensitive cell death.
Michael Messina
Department Head and Professor of Ecosystem Science and Management
Tim Miyashiro
Assistant Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology How bacteria adapt to a host environment. The mutualistic symbiosis established between the Hawaiian bobtail squid (Euprymna scolopes) and a bioluminescent bacterium (Vibrio fischeri).
Andrew Patterson
Professor and Huck Chair of Molecular Toxicology; Faculty Oversight, Metabolomics Core Facility The Patterson lab is focused on understanding the host-metabolite-microbiome axis
Divya Prakash
Assistant Research Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Nilam Ram
Professor of Human Development and Family Studies; Professor of Psychology
Andrew Read
Director, Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences; Evan Pugh Professor of Biology and Entomology; Eberly Professor of Biotechnology The ecology and evolutionary genetics of infectious disease.
John Regan
Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering Biological treatment processes, molecular microbial ecology, bioenergy production.
Tanya Renner
Assistant Professor of Entomology Evolution of chemical and structural defense. Molecular evolution, evolutionary genomics, and transcriptomics. Origins and evolution of carnivorous plants.
Connie Rogers
Associate Director, Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences; Associate Professor of Nutritional Sciences Role of changes in energy balance and related nutritional factors on inflammation, immune regulation, and cancer risk using both animal models and human subjects.
Cristina Rosa
Associate Professor of Plant Pathology & Environmental Microbiology
Plant Virology, interaction of plant viruses with their insects as vectors and with their plant hosts. Virus evolution, exploration of plant viromes, viral co-infections, effect of climate change on viral resistant breaking strains. Use of…
Steven Schiff
Director of the Center for Neural Engineering; Brush Chair Professor of Engineering; Professor of Neurosurgery; Professor of Engineering Science and Mechanics Neural engineering, neurosurgery, epilepsy, Parkinsons Disease, wave mechanics, brain machine interfaces, EEG, electrical fields, and control theory.
Justin Silverman
Assistant Professor of Information Sciences and Technology Statistical methods for the analysis of biomedical data (or any other interesting data/questions)
Vishal Singh
Assistant Professor of Nutritional Physiology and Microbiome
Moriah Szpara
Associate Professor of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology and Biology
How genetic variation influences the outcomes of viral infection, particularly for neurotropic viruses such as herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV-1) and HSV-2, using high-throughput sequencing, comparative genomics, neuronal cultures, and genetic…
Claire Thomas
Associate Professor of Biology and of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Roles of the cytoskeleton at the cell membrane in epithelial cells, including issues of cell polarity and adhesion, cell signaling, and morphogenesis.
Gary Thompson
Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Education, College of Agricultural Sciences; Director, PA Agricultural Experiment Station
Emily Weinert
Associate Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology The mechanisms by which bacteria sense and respond to the environment, as well as how these signaling proteins/pathways affect competition, host colonization, and pathogenesis.
Howie Weiss
Professor of Biology
I am a Biomathematican and very recently moved to Penn State from Georgia Tech (I also had appointments at Emory in Public Health and PBEE). Bacteria and their viruses (phages) provide a way to study ecological and evolutionary processes in real time…
Lingzhou Xue
Associate Professor of Statistics High-dimensional statistics, statistical learning, optimization, econometrics, and statistical applications in biological science, environmental science, and social science.
Yin-Ting (Tim) Yeh
Assistant Research Professor of Physics - Terrones Lab Multidisciplinary study focused on developing point-of-care technologies for rapid detection of infectious diseases.