Research Interests

My broad research interest is in bacterial metabolism and function in environmental settings. I completed by PhD in 2005 in Bacteriology at Queen’s University in Canada and postdoctoral research projects at Health Canada  and National Research Council of Canada, and Biotechnology, Faculty of Engineering, at Lund University, Sweden.

I want to understand how their interlocking metabolisms can allow us to change or control how the bacteria are behaving in industrially-related environments. This understanding will allow us to work together with the bacteria to clean up our natural world: to reduce contamination of drinking water or to degrade chemicals that are contaminating our natural environments. By controlling what growth conditions such as nutrients are available to the microbes, perhaps their interaction with our human-built and urban environments can be steered towards positive outcomes, such as reduction of greenhouse gas emissions or safer drinking water, instead of the other way around. I like to think of this as a prebiotic approach to management of these key microbial ecosystem services.

Projects

Bacteria and waste

          Anaerobic methane oxidation in landfill soil

          Fibre bank waste in the Baltic Sea (TREASURE project)

Microbial biofilms in drinking water

          Biofilms in the drinking water distribution system (Ph.D student Katharina Lührig)

          Ecology of microbial biofilms in drinking water treatment plants (Ph.D. student Sandy Chan)

          A glass of water contains millions of bacteria

Smaller collaborations/projects

          Killing of bacteria in drinking water by UV-LEDs, with Watersprint AB

Publications

Teaching

Gene Technology KBK041 - shared course responsibility

Pipe Systems Engineering VVRN25 - lecturing

Water, Society and Climate Change VVRN20 - lecturing

Molecular Cell Biology KMBF01- lecturing

Environmental Biotechnology KBT 080 - lecturing