Director
Joan B. Rose, Ph.D.
Laboratory Director / Principal Investigator
Phone: (517) 432-4412
Email: rosejo@msu.edu
Lab Staff
Rebecca Ives’s work involves detection of microbes in natural and built environments, with a focus on pathogenic organisms. Rebecca is a certified analyst for the detection of Cryptosporidium and Giardia in water. Rebecca frequently works with environmental consulting agencies on reduction assessments for current and planned treatment systems as well as with the community members, academic agencies, government agencies, and non-governmental organizations to help protect and improve water quality.
Julia Bazner
Email: baznerju@msu.edu
Spencer Kuehn
Email: kuehnspe@msu.edu
Postdoctoral Fellows
Education:
Ph.D., Science & Technology (Water Microbiology), University of Mumbai, 2019.
M.Sc., Science (Microbiology), University of Mumbai, 2010.
B.Sc., Science (Microbiology), University of Mumbai, 2008.
Background and Research Interests:
Nishita D’Souza is a Post Doctoral Research Associate at the Water Quality, Environmental and Molecular Microbiology laboratory at Michigan State University. Nishita has a background in Water Microbiology and her doctoral work focused on evaluating bacterial surrogates for the validation of protozoa disinfection in ozone based water treatment systems. She has experience in developing microbiological methods and working with waterborne bacterial, viral and protozoan pathogens particularly in water and wastewater. Nishita is an experienced Microbiology Instructor and enjoys mentoring undergraduate and graduate students on various projects.
Nishita’s research at MSU focuses on Microbial Source Tracking to monitor river water quality. She is actively involved in the Waste Water Based Epidemiology surveillance studies for SARS CoV-2 virus lead by Dr. Joan Rose. Her research focuses on studying microorganisms through classical microbial culture based methods as well as advanced molecular methods such as qPCR and droplet digital PCR. Nishita works with Water utilities, Industry clients, Academic researchers and Global organizations to better understand water quality issues, in an effort to develop solutions to mitigate public health risks.
Matthew Flood’s work involves detection of microbes in natural and built environments, with a focus on Microbial Source Tracking (MST) and emerging technologies. Matthew frequently works with the community members, academic agencies, government agencies, and non-governmental organizations to help protect and improve water quality. Matthew’s current research project is using MST to link agricultural fertilizer practices with nutrient inputs in surface waters across Michigan using Droplet Digital PCR (ddPCR).
Students
Simran Singh
Email: singhsi8@msu.edu
Simran is pursuing her Masters of Fisheries and Wildlife with Dr. Joan Rose. Her masters project includes working with the Office of Naval Research in testing marine water/developing a concentrating method for viral pathogens in the netted bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncates) and California sea lions (Zalophus californianus) enclosures. She also works in Dr. Joan Rose’s COVID-19 wastewater analysis lab at MSU as a graduate research assistant.
Emilia Emerson
Email: emerso67@msu.edu
Corrine Caponigro
Email: caponig8@msu.edu
Renee Fromwiller
Email: fromwil2@msu.edu
Emily Zak
Email: zakemily@msu.edu
Office Support Staff
Sarah Holmes
Email: danns@msu.edu
Melissa Downs
Email: downsmel@msu.edu
