People: 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 processing, and commercialization and regulatory pathways for nanomedical human healthcare formulations
Istvan Albert
Research Professor of Bioinformatics
Bioinformatics, large scale biological data analysis, microarrays and sequence analysis. Scientific programming, algorithm development. Database-driven web development.
Leann Andrews
Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture
One Health and the built environment, landscape systems, urban ecological design, design activism, community design, transdisciplinary action research and training programs
Paul Bartell
Associate Professor of Avian Biology
The regulation of biological clocks in birds at the systems level.
Guilherme Becker
Associate Professor of Biology
Host-microbial interactions, landscape genetics and the ecology of global change stressors. Building models and conducting field and laboratory experiments to understand the biotic and abiotic mechanisms driving wildlife disease dynamics in both tropical and temperate systems.
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
Seth Bordenstein
Director of the One Health Microbiome Center; Huck Chair in Microbiome Sciences; Professor of Biology and Entomology
The evolutionary and genetic principles that shape symbiotic interactions between animals, microbes, and viruses and the major applications of these interactions to human health.
Elizabeth Boyer
Professor of Environmental Science
Hydrology, Biogeochemistry, Environmental Systems, Water Quality.
Mary Ann Bruns
Professor of Soil Microbiology and Biogeochemistry; Faculty-in-Charge of Microbiome Sciences Dual-Title Degree Program
Compositions and functions of microbiomes in agriculture, ecological restoration, and engineered systems for ecosystem service provision and climate change adaptation
Carolee Bull
Professor of Plant Pathology; Bacterial Systematics Head; Director of Microbiome Sciences Dual-Title Degree Program
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
Director of the Center for Root and Rhizosphere Biology; 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 methodologies
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 interactions between hosts, microbes, and the environment across time and space and using this information to inform plant disease management.
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.
Francesco Di Gioia
Associate Professor of Vegetable Crop Science
Plant nutrition, plant physiological and biochemical response to environmental and abiotic stress conditions, sustainable vegetable production, agrobiodiversity, agronomic biofortification, food and nutrition security.
Justin DiAngelo
Assistant Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Francisco Diaz
Director of the Center for Reproductive Health and Biology; Associate Professor of Reproductive Biology
Ovarian physiology. Role of SMAD-mediated signaling in follicular and female germ cell (oocyte) development.
Francisco Dini-Andreote
Huck Early Career Chair in Microbial Community Ecology, 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
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
Emphasis Area Representative, Microbiome Sciences; 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
Genomics of fungi, applied to the evolution of plant and animal disease, toxin production, and beneficial roles. Fungal phylogenetics and population genetics, especially in Fusarium, and sequence-based identification tools. Identification of unique pathogen-specific genomic regions in pathogens, and diagnostic markers.
Ilias Georgakopoulos-Soares
Assistant Professor
The development and implementation of new computational methods in genomics and molecular biology, with the aim of identifying genetic biomarkers for the diagnosis, monitoring, and treatment of human diseases, including bacterial and viral infections and of aging-associated diseases including neurodegenerative diseases and cancer.
Joshua Gross
Assistant Professor of Nutrition and Biobehavioral Health
Cellular- and transgenic mouse model-based approaches to investigate the molecular mechanisms of G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) signaling and trafficking in the pathophysiological contexts of obesity, eating disorders, and metabolic disease.
Kevin Hockett
Huck Early Career Chair; Associate 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.
Kelli Hoover
Professor of Entomology
Invasive species of forest insects; plant-insect-entomopathogen interactions; impacts of plants on pathogenesis; biological control of hemlock woolly adelgid
Xiangming Ji
Associate Professor of Nutritional Sciences
Metabolic studies in the airway epithelium, spanning from normal cells to at-risk epithelial cells, and ultimately to cancer cells.
María del Mar Jiménez Gasco
Professor of Plant Pathology and Environmental Mictobiology; Head, Dept of Plant Pathology and Environmental Microbiology
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.
Camelia Kantor
Associate Director of Strategic Initiatives; Associate Research Professor
Camelia Kantor is a highly interdisciplinary geospatial researcher and integrator. Before joining Huck, her prior work involved HBCU teaching, research and training and national security related program assessment and management. Her research interests are at the intersection of geospatial, life sciences, and business. Since 2010, she has been a frequent speaker, conference lead, and academic program evaluator.
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.
Rupinder Kaur
Assistant Research Professor
Uncovering the mechanism behind Wolbachia-induced drive system named Cytoplasmic Incompatibility (CI) that results in embryonic lethality when modified sperms from Wolbachia-infected males fertilize eggs from uninfected females. CI is currently at the forefront of approaches targeting pest populations and mosquito-borne viral diseases, and can also impact arthropod speciation.
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. Bioanalytical techniques to probe the mechanism of action and basic biology of these target organisms. Ethnobotany and indigenous knowledge surrounding plant-based medicine.
Girish Kirimanjeswara
Emphasis Area Representative, Immunology and Infectious Disease; Associate Professor of Veterinary and Biomedical Science
Establishing the Virulence Factors
Imhoi Koo
Research Assistant Professor
Develop pipeline and algorithms
of metabolomics data processing.
David Koslicki
Chair, Intercollege Graduate Degree Program in Bioinformatics and Genomics; 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; Associate Professor of Food Science
Integrating epidemiological, microbiological, molecular and omics methods to better understand microbial pathogenic potential, antimicrobial resistance, and epidemiology of foodborne pathogens.
Emilie Lefoulon
Assistant Research Professor
I joined the Bordenstein lab in August of 2023 and I am studying host-Wolbachia-virus interaction investigating novel mechanisms associated with the bacteriophage partner.
Dajiang Liu
Co-Chair, Intercollege Graduate Degree Program in Bioinformatics and Genomics; Professor of Public Health Sciences and Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Developing statistical and AI methods and experimental approaches to integrate multi-omics data with GWAS to study host x microbiome interaction, Alzheimer's diseases, smoking and drinking addiction, and lupus in diverse populations.
Hong Ma
Huck Chair in Plant Reproductive Development and Evolution; 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 biogeography.
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.
Elizabeth McGraw
Professor and Huck Scholar in Entomology
The genetics of vector, pathogen and symbiont interactions.
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.
Scott Medina
Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering
Design of bio-inspired functional materials that serve as new tools in precision medicine. Understanding how peptides and proteins assemble at natural and non-natural interfaces to form organized structures with unique biochemical functions. The design of nano- and micro-scale biomaterials to develop new biosensing and therapeutic strategies to treat infectious disease, inflammation and cancer.
Tim Miyashiro
Associate 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
Andrew Read
Senior Vice President for Research; 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
Associate Professor of Entomology
Evolution of chemical and structural defense. Molecular evolution, evolutionary genomics, and transcriptomics. Origins and evolution of carnivorous plants.
Veronica Roman-Reyna
Assistant Professor of Global Change Pathology
I work on understanding how plant-associated microbes change in agricultural systems.
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 nanotechnologies for virus detection and virus disease management.
Amir Sheikhi
Huck Early Career Chair in Biomaterials and Regenerative Engineering ; Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering
Micro- and nanoengineered soft materials for medicine and the environment; microfluidic-enabled biomaterials for tissue engineering and regeneration; living materials; next-generation bioadhesives, tissue sealants, and hemostatic agents; hydrogels for minimally invasive medical technologies; self-healing and adaptable soft materials; smart coatings; hairy nanocelluloses as an emerging family of advanced materials.
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
Mary Ann Smith
Biology Lecturer (Schuylkill)
The isolation of microorganisms with the potential for antibiotic production within soil and sourdough systems
Moriah Szpara
Professor of 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 manipulation of both host and pathogen.
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.
Cheryl Thompson
Professor of Public Health Sciences
The intersection of behavioral, lifestyle and environmental factors with inherited variation to influence individual risk of cancer or cancer outcomes.
Natasha Tirko
Director, Master of Biotechnology Degree Program; Associate Teaching Professor
Andres Valdez
Assistant Research Professor
Studies the interactions between Bacteria, Nutrients, and Phage in physically structured domains.
Emily Weinert
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.
Laura Weyrich
Associate Professor of Anthropology
Reconstructing ancient oral microbiomes and supporting ancient DNA analysis of past humans, environments, and animals.
Pak Kin Wong
Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Surgery
Lingzhou Xue
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.