Students

Heather Day, MS

Heather Day (formerly Heather Bost) is currently living in Troy, NY, and working on her Master of Arts in Teaching Biology at Sage College, while her husband completes postdoctoral training at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI). Heather is currently teaching an undergraduate Microbiology Lab at Sage, and working with elementary aged children as the Environmental Educator at Dyken Pond, a county park and education center. She recently published an article, "An Evaluation of the Alignment of New York State's Living Environment Mandated Lab Activities to the MST Standards," in the Science Teachers' Association of New York State's Spring 2006 Science Teachers Bulletin. She is interested in helping students learn about the scientific process, and is currently working with her coauthor, Dr. Dorothy Matthews, on another article investigating the way in which scientific inquiry is assessed on standardized tests. When she isn't busy teaching and being a student, Heather is enjoying exploring New York's beautiful outdoors.

Past Undergraduates

Eric Coker rickeyrulz@yahoo.com

Update: Eric is now a graduate student under Mike Yost! Eric Coker works under the advisement of Dr. Scott Meschke as lab assistant in the Environmental Health Microbiology lab. Current laboratory research includes microbial source typing for recreational waters. Much of this work relies upon specific culture and genetic testing for coliphage as an indicator for the microbial water quality. Water sampling of marine environments is also one aspect of Eric's work.

Henry Doan henryd2@u.washington.edu

Project: biofilm trap A biofilm trap consists of a device that water containing pathogen can flow past biofilms, providing the potential for the pathogen to attach to the biofilm or become entrapped in the biofilm. After time, the biofilm is removed and sampled to determine the presence of pathogens that may have been in the water trapped by the biofilm. Project: UV purification system Work with Derrick you, under the supervision of Laura. The UV system consists of a UV light bulb and a water box, which allow water to flow past the UV bulb. Samples are collected at the inlet and outlet and they will be used in membrane filtration. These filters will be grown on selected media.

Brandt Pein peinb@u.washington.edu

I applied for an internship through the STAR program in late spring and was accepted to work in Dr. Meschke's lab for the summer of 2006. Throughout the summer I have worked on many projects in both the Meschke lab and Marilyn Robert's lab. My projects at Dr. Meschke's lab included microbial source tracking in Tulalip Reservation and Oakland Bay, and analyzing water fountain samples from local restaurants via microbial filtration. The work in these projects consisted of going into the field to collect water samples and running both single agar layer and two-step enrichment assays to detect fecal coliphage. My project at Dr. Robert's lab consisted of the isolation, detection and quantification of bacterial mRNA to find a link between phenotypic and genotypic antibiotic expression.

Derrick You dyou@u.washington.edu

Over the course of the past three months a UV-disinfection system to be used as a point-of-use treatment option in Vietnam has been explored. This project is a continuation of Laura McLaughlin's thesis and aims to address some unanswered questions. The UV system consists of a metal housing in which a UV lamp and ballast are attached. This system is built entirely of materials easily accessible in many parts of the world and can be easily built. The system basically consists of untreated water that flows through a metal housing containing the UV light where the water is treated and then stored in another container for future use. The mechanism behind UV disinfection involves the joining of neighboring thymine dimmers in the target for removal causing errors in DNA replication. Efficacy of the system was determined by log removals of seeded coliphage, E. coli and enterococci, based on inlet and outlet samples. Clear buffered water, low and high turbid water, and low and high iron concentrations were also used to determine the effect of such solutions on log removals. For future experiments a slow sand filter incorporated into the system will be tested to see if such an addition can increase the efficacy of the UV system. This system hopes to prevent diarrheal disease in many developing countries where millions of children fall victim to this second most common cause of death.