I am a graduate of the Microbiology Doctoral Training Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where I worked on aspects of pathogenesis by Uropathogenic Escherichia coli (UPEC) in the lab of Dr. Rod Welch. Primarily, I analyzed the in vivo expression differences between the wild-type and the hyper-colonizing dsdA strains of the model UPEC strain, CFT073. I exploited a technique developed in collaboration with the Mobley lab in which bacteria-laden urine is collected from mice infected with a single strain of E. coli. Bacterial RNA is subsequently isolated from these urine samples, and then reverse-transcribed to a population of labeled cDNAs that can be analyzed using microarrays. I identified key differences between in vivo expression profiles of the wild-type and dsdA strains, and identified several genes which contribute to the hyper-colonization phenotype of the dsdA strain.
I came to the University of Wisconsin-Madison from Bemidji State University in Northern Minnesota where I was a biology major. I performed undergraduate research with Dr. Patrick Guilfoile (also a UW-Madison Ph.D.), which focused on the identification of an immunoglobulin binding protein from the deer tick, Ixodes scapularis. Later work from the lab eventually uncovered this type of protein expressed in male ticks. During my time at BSU, I also gained experience in supporting Apple hardware and software in a print and web design environment as a systems administrator for the BSU News & Publications department.
Before attending BSU, I was born and raised even further north in Minnesota near a town of 212 named Grygla. Today, I enjoy life on the north side of Madison, WI with my wife and son. When not in the lab, I enjoy learning about technology, programming, and Apple hardware and Mac OS X scientific software.