Our #OnThisDay Volunteers 2021
21-02-22
The #OnThisDay project aims to assemble a collection of historically important microbiology events for every single day of the year. These events could be interesting discoveries, the dates of seminal scientific publications, the important moments in the lives of famous microbiologists, or anything that would pique the interest of the microbiology community!
The OnThisDay team research these facts and figures and then this important information is be digested into social media content for the purposes of science communication and and public engagement, as well as raising the profile of underrepresented scientists.
Chiara Lonigro
Country of residence: Belgium
Short Bio: Chiara Lonigro is a biotechnologist fascinated by the potential of microbial tools to benefit society. Originally from Italy, she graduated in Industrial Biotechnology at the University of Padova. During her Master, she spent 9 months in Paris at the Institut de Biologie Physico-Chimique (UMR7099) in the context of the Erasmus+ for internship. Currently, she is settled in Gent, Belgium where she is finishing her PhD at the Flemish Institute for Biotechnology (VIB), investigating the potential use of the yeast Pichia pastoris for the manufacturing of single chain antibodies for fast response to pandemic outbreaks of influenza and corona viruses. Her personal mission is to contribute in creating a solid trust between science and society by increasing public engagement and understating of science.
Elizabeth (Tess) Deyett
Country of Residence: United States
Short bio: Dr Elizabeth (Tess) Deyett is a current postdoc under the guidance of Dr. Philippe Rolshausen at the University of California Riverside studying plant-microbe interactions with a primary interest in sustainable agriculture. As the lab’s bioinformatician, she analyzes microbiome data and sequences related to biocontrols and beneficial microbes of crops such as grapevine, almond, and citrus. She serves as an assistant feature editor for the Phytobiomes Journal and Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions Journal. A passionate and driven science communicator, Tess also hosts her own website microbigals.com and podcast The Microbe Moment. She aspires to share how microbes are a constant force of good to every person and that everyone has many unique microbe moments to share with the world!
Maria-Antonietta Buccheri
Country of Residence: Italy
Short bio: Dr. Maria-Antonietta Buccheri is an enthusiastic geneticist. Her research focus has been shifting along the years from human genetics to microbial genetics, mostly in the environmental field. She is currently working at the University of Catania (Italy) in the frame of the project “Micro Wastewater Treatment Systems using Photocatalytic Surfaces” – MicroWatTS, funded by the European Interreg Italia-Malta Programme, where she investigates both greywater bacterial communities through metagenomics and possible application of nanotechnologies for water purification. As a former Marie Curie Fellow, she volunteered for the Marie Curie Fellows Association (MCFA) and the Marie Curie Alumni Association (MCAA), gaining experience in science policy and communication. Recently, she participated in the design and development of the science communication campaign #guesswhat developed by @precariuniti.cnr on Instagram. She loves arousing curiosity around science and wishes to make science enticing to the general public.
Susanna Gevorgyan
Country of Residence: Armenia
Short bio: Susanna Gevorgyan is a PhD student in Biochemistry at Yerevan State University, Armenia, and a fellow at the Center for Ultrafast Imaging at the University of Hamburg, Germany. Her PhD research is devoted to studying the effect of metal and biologically active compounds’ nanoparticles on microorganisms and animals’ cells. During her PhD study, short-term research fellowships from FEBS and FEMS enabled her to investigate the biosynthesis of metal nanoparticles by Streptomyces coelicolor to develop an environmentally friendly approach. At the same time, scholarship from the University of Hamburg opened up new perspectives for research on protein nanoparticles. In addition to her academic interests and research, she is engaged in various volunteer activities to bring science and society closer together, promote the Natural Sciences, and raise public awareness.
Swati Gupta
Country of Residence: India
Short bio: Swati Gupta has completed her BSc in Microbiology, University of Delhi, India and MSc in Applied Microbiology from Banaras Hindu University, India. She is presently working as Associate Scientist with a biotech organization based in India. Her recent work involving notorious biofilms, has led to her inclination towards antimicrobial resistance and microbiome research. She also aspires to work for antimicrobial stewardship program in near future.