Past News & Announcements
Microbiologists Identify Source of Methane in Amazon Pastures
October 2020: A team of microbiologists led by Klaus Nüsslein, UMass Amherst, and Marie Kroeger, Los Alamos National Laboratory, have reported that they have identified the source of methane being emitted from pastures in Brazil's Amazon region. Read more...
Sloan Siegrist Participates in SEA-PHAGES Program
October 2020: Sloan Siegrist, Assistant Professor of Microbiology, was among life science faculty who participated in the pilot of CNS's Science Education Alliance-Phage Hunters Advancing Genomics and Evolutionary Science (SEA-PHAGES) program. In order to improve the academic success of students majoring in STEM disciplines, the UMass Inclusive Excellence Initiative aims to provide authentic research experiences to science majors, especially those majoring in the life sciences, as part of a student’s first year curriculum and continuing into their upper division courses. As part of this initiative, CNS launched the Science Education Alliance-Phage Hunters Advancing Genomics and Evolutionary Science (SEA-PHAGES) program in the introductory biology laboratory experience. Read more...
Mandy Muller Receives NIH Grant
September 2020: Mandy Muller, Assistant Professor of Microbiology, recently received a five-year Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award (MIRA) from NIH’s National Institute for General Medical Sciences. Dr. Muller will continue her advanced studies into how certain viruses evade the body’s immune response by hiding, undetectable, deep in tissues for decades. Read more...
Barry Goodell and Reuben Shipway Receive NSF Grant
June 2020: Dr. Reuben Shipway at the University of Portsmouth in the UK, and Professor Barry Goodell, UMass Microbiology, have received a 2-year National Science Foundation (IOS- Plant Biotic Interactions) award for $476,483 entitled: “How do shipworms eat wood? A non-enzymatic, symbiont-mediated mechanism for the digestion of lignocellulose in teredinids”. Read more...
Microbiology and Engineering Electrically Connect
June 2020: In a series of four recent papers in Nature and other high visibility journals the Yao lab in Engineering and the Lovley lab in Microbiology report on new applications for microbial nanowires. Read more...New Green Technology, Electronics, Sensitive Chemical Sensor
Jonathan Miller Interviewed by Journal of Cell Science
May 2020: Jonathan Miller, Ph.D., a recent graduate of the Microbiology Graduate Program, was interviewed by First Person. First Person is a series of interviews of first authors of a selection of papers published in the Journal of Cell Science. The series helps to promote early-career researchers and their published research findings. Read more...
Ghoshal Three Minute Thesis Finalist
March 2020: Microbiology Ph.D. candidate, Mrinalini Ghoshal, is a finalist in the UMass Graduate School's Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition. Of the 40 preliminary round participants in the competition, 10 were selected as finalists. The 3MT campus final will be held on Friday, February 28th, 1:00-2:30 p.m. in the Old Chapel. Finalists will also present their research to the broader community at the 3MT Community Day at the Amherst Jones Library on Saturday, March 28th, 3-4pm.
Dirty Little Secrets
February 2020: Western Mass News recently met up with Dr. Erika Hamilton, Director of Microbiology Teaching Services, to discover what bacteria live and grow on every day items that we use such as water bottles, purses and gas pumps. Read more...
In another segment on Western Mass News, Dr. Hamilton tested makeup for bacteria that customers sampled in stores. Read more...
Nevin and Lovley Named Highly Cited Researchers
December 2019: Kelly Nevin and Derek Lovley have been recognized for being among the world’s most highly cited researchers in 2019 by London-based Clarivate Analytics, owner of the Web of Science. The citation analysis identifies influential researchers as determined by their peers around the world. Read more...
Mrinalini Ghoshal Receives Award for Presentation
November 2019: Mrinalini (Mira) Ghoshal, 3rd-year PhD candidate in the Microbiology Department received the 1st Prize Award for the Best Oral Presentation at the 9th Annual Life Sciences Graduate Research Symposium. The Symposium was held at the UMass-Amherst Campus on November 22, 2019. The title of Mira’s presentation was: “Exploring the role of low molecular weight metabolites in the formation of host brain lesions during Cryptococcus neoformans infection”. Cryptococcus is an important fungal disease problem that kills 181,000 people each year, and Mira is exploring a new mode for the way the fungus attacks the brain. Her research is conducted in collaboration with her advisor, Professor Barry Goodell in the Microbiology Department.
Lovley Team Recipient of Manning/IALS Seed Grant
October 2019: Derek Lovley and his group of researchers were one of six teams to be named recipients of the first Manning/IALS Seed Grants for their project “Fabricating Protein Nanowires for Unique Sensing Capabilities”. Alumnus Paul Manning and his wife, Diane, committed $1 million through their family foundation to establish the Manning Innovation Program. Read more...
Derek Lovley's research on electroactive bacteria was recently featured in the New York Times.
Microbiology Promotions
September 2019: Dr. Yasu Morita received tenure and was promoted to the rank of Associate Professor. Jeffrey Kane, AMB Lecturer and Advisor, was promoted to Senior Lecturer. Both promotions were effective September 1, 2019.
Department of Microbiology