My career has taken me through the worlds of dairy fermentations (working with Lactococcus lactis, Lactobacillus helveticus, and Lactobacillus casei), and human pathogens, first working on enteroaggregative Escherichia coli, and since moving to Penn State, E. coli O157:H7 and Salmonella. I’ve also been fascinated by CRISPRs. Outside of my research, I teach our graduate-level introduction to food microbiology, Fd Sc 500A, and junior level food microbiology course, Fd Sc 408. I’m past head of the Applied and Environmental Sciences track of the American Society for Microbiology (ASM), am an Editor for Applied and Environmental Microbiology, and a co-Editor of EcoSal Plus. In 2023, I was elected into the American Academy of Microbiology.