This summer, we were fortunate to host two students from the VCU Honors College Summer Undergraduate Research Program (HSURP). Shray Amin and Sunauz Moezzi each spent eight weeks in the lab working on independent projects related to our ongoing study of James River water quality. Shray worked primarily with Dr. Joseph Battistelli to study the distribution and diversity of thermotolerant Escherichia coli, while Sunauz worked with graduate student Enjolie Levengood to isolate several strains of antibiotic resistant bacteria. Enjolie and Sunauz received a Student Research Award from the VCU Rice Rivers Center and will continue working this fall to identify these organisms and assess them for multi-drug resistance. Oh my, these two used a LOT of plates!

VCU Microbial Ecology