Microbiology: Faculty and Staff

A message from the Directors

Microbes are both the cause of and the solution to many of humanity’s grand challenges in human health, sustainable agriculture, protection of natural environments, cleaning up polluted environments, and engineered systems.

In the coming decades, microbiologists will be critical to understanding the microbes in these systems, controlling them, and putting them to work for us. The Microbiology Graduate Program educates students broadly in microbiology, so that you will be equipped to address any of these grand challenges. Whether you work on nutrient cycles, human disease, or microbial process engineering, you will learn the laboratory, analytical, and bioinformatic tools needed to ask and answer questions of global importance.

When you join the Microbiology Graduate Program at UD, you will join a vibrant community of microbiologists with faculty in 14 departments across campus, including Biology, Marine Science and Policy, Geology, Plant and Soil Sciences, Civil and Environmental Engineering. This breadth gives students access to an extensive range of equipment, collaborators, and expertise. Regardless of the home department, our goal is to characterize the microbes in different environments – from the human body to water to soil and sediment – and understand how they work, so that we can put them to work for us.

We hope you will join us!

Clara Chan


Professor of Earth, Ocean and Environment; Director of Microbiology Graduate Program
 302-831-1819

Nicole Donofrio


Professor of Pathology; Assoiate Director of Microbiology Graduate Program
 302-831-1372

Wendy Feller


Graduate Services Coordinator
 
Name/Profile Email College Research Focus      
Harsh Bais hbais@udel.edu CANR Plant microbe interactions and phytochemistry      
Mona Batish batish@udel.edu CHS Molecular and cellular cancer biology      
Jennifer Biddle jfbiddle@udel.edu CEOE Sediment microbial metagenomics and biogeochemistry      
Sam Biswas biswassb@udel.edu CHS Human Papillomavirus family (HPV) induced oncogenesis and mechanism of DNA replication in pathogenic bacteria      
Mark Blenner blenner@udel.edu COE Synbio, metabolic engineering, functional genomics, microbiome engineering      
Fidelma Boyd fboyd@udel.edu CAS Genomic determinants of host-pathogen interactions in Vibrio      
Daniel Cha cha@udel.edu COE Microbial conversion of food waste to high-value products      
Clara Chan cschan@udel.edu CEOE Fe-oxidizing bacteria and geomicrobiology      
Pei Chiu pei@udel.edu COE Bioremediation      
Nicole Donofrio ndonof@udel.edu CANR Fungal-plant interactions, or fungal-bacterial interactions      
Aditya Dutta adidutta@udel.edu CANR Gut and reproductive tract microbiome.      
Jeff Fuhrman fuhrmann@udel.edu CANR Ecology and diversity of nitrogen-fixing microbial populations in soil-plant systems      
Catherine Grimes cgrimes@udel.edu CAS Chemical glycobiology and innate immunity      
Thomas Hanson tehanson@udel.edu CEOE Microbial metabolism and ecology. Engineering autotrophic bacteria for production.      
Yan Jin yjin@udel.edu CANR Microbial mediated changes of soil properties and processes; biophysical processes in the rhizosphere      
Kalmia Kniel kniel@udel.edu CANR Microbial food safety      
Alyssa Koehler akoehler@udel.edu CANR Molecular and cellular plant-microbe interactions; fungal biology      
Aditya Kunjapur kunjapur@udel.edu COE biological containment of microbes; live bacterial vaccine platforms; bacterial spore display of proteins      
Kelvin Lee khl@udel.edu COE Development and application of high throughput proteomics      
Adam Marsh amarsh@udel.edu CEOE Environmental genomics and evolutionary signatures in genomic information      
Ramona Neuneubel neunr@udel.edu CAS Host-pathogen interactions in Legionella      
Terry Papoutsakis epaps@udel.edu COE Clostridial engineering for butanol production      
Vijay Parashar parashar@udel.edu CHS mechanistic basis of critical communication events during bacterial pathogenesis      
Mark Parcells parcells@udel.edu CANR Viral genetics and infection      
Shawn Polson polson@dbi.udel.edu COE, CEOE Microbial-viral interactions and bioinformatics      
Sharon Rozovsky rozovsky@udel.edu CAS Selenoproteins and Se-NMR in structure-function studies      
Karl Schmitz schmitzk@udel.edu CAS Clp proteases from Mycobacterium tuberculosis      
Angelia Seyfferth angelias@udel.edu CANR Microbial influences on As accumulation in plants      
Kevin Solomon kvs@udel.edu COE anaerobic fungi functional genomics      
Molly Sutherland msuther@udel.edu CAS Cytochrome c biogenesis in bacteria      
Adam Wallace afw@udel.edu CEOE Microbial control of mineralization reactions      
Mark Warner mwarner@udel.edu CEOE Coral-phototroph symbioses and harmful algal blooms      
Eric Wommack wommack@dbi.udel.edu CANR, CEOE Viral ecology and metagenomics      
Cathy Wu wuc@udel.edu COE Genomics      
Ryan Zurakowski ryanz@udel.edu COE Modeling host-pathogen interactions based in control theory