FSC Member

Kacey Ernst

John Ehiri

Michael Dunn

Nina Corson

Debbie Reed

Hope Wilson

Chair, Communications Committee

Oversees retail and consumer food safety outreach and education programs for families, older adults, childcare centers, restaurants and other licensed food establishments, farmers markets and local food microentrepreneurs. Retail and Consumer Food Safety Education Area responsibilities include Coconino, Maricopa, Mohave, Pima and Yavapai Counties.

Shari Yeatts

VK Viswanathan

My laboratory is interested in the interactions between pathogenic bacteria and host cells. Specifically, we study the mechanisms by which enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli (“spinach- or hamburger E. coli”) and related bacteria cause disease.

Marc Verhougstraete

Dr. Verhougstraete's primary research has focused on environmental microbiology and water quality. To this aspect, Marc's  focus is primarily on understanding the sources, occurrence, and transport of waterborne pathogens using fecal indicator organisms and molecular source tracking.  Marc's research interests also include the integration of microbial water quality with hydrological catchment dynamics, landscape patterns, and Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment to improve environmental management that protect human and ecosystem health. Recent efforts investigate the effects of intervention practices in the healthcare systems to reduce the transmission of pathogenic agents and associated healthcare infections.

Gayatri Vedantam

The goal of our research is to investigate the mechanism(s) of gut colonization by the diarrheic disease pathogen Clostridium difficile.  C. difficileis the etiologic agent of C. difficile infection (CDI), a leading cause of nosocomial disease world-wide. CDI causes a spectrum of disease manifestations that range from mild diarrhea to lethal pseudomembranous colitis. Over 400,000 cases of CDI occur annually in the USA, imposing a $3.2 billion excess burden on the healthcare system. Research in our laboratory is focused on the molecular characterization of non-toxin virulence factors of C. difficile, and is aimed at designing interventions to combat as well as prevent CDI. We are also involved in multiple surveillance studies in Tucson-area hospitals that quantitate the incidence of both nosocomial and community-acquired CDI, via direct bacterial culture of patient samples as well as recovery of spores from abiotic environments such as hospital surfaces.