Author Archives: Maya Nadimpalli

Jianyong Wu

Wu_Jianyong_headshot2Jianyong is a postdoctoral fellow. He received his Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. With a background in both environmental health microbiology and medical geography, he has broad interests in water-related public health issues, including detection of microbial indicators and pathogens, risk factors for waterborne diseases, health effects of land cover and climate change. He has been trained in both experiment-based skills, such as molecular biology, and computing-based skills, such as remote sensing, GIS, Bayesian statistics and mathematical modeling. In addition, he is proficient in data collection, management and analysis. To date, he has over 20 peer-reviewed journal publications.

Billy Gerhard

Billy-Turtle-copyBilly graduated in August 2015 with his MSPH. His master’s research focused on the use of molecular methods to identify the source of drinking water contamination in the Galapagos Islands. He still works with the lab as a visiting scholar and with the Center for Galapagos Studies as a graduate affiliate. Billy is currently a Ph.D. student in Environmental Process Engineering at Duke University where his research investigates the role of ballast water as a mode of pathogen transport and offers insight to effective remediation strategies..

David Holcomb

David is researching strategies to assess exposure to microbes in the environment. He is using molecular techniques to characterize fecal contamination in the household environment in urban Maputo, Mozambique. This research will be used to evaluate a large-scale sanitation intervention and its effects on child health. He is also working on a geostatistical tool to predict microbial contamination at the watershed level, and is developing a statistical framework for estimating the contribution of different fecal pollution sources in a set of environmental samples.

Visit David’s website for a current CV and publications.

Sarah Rhodes

Sarah is a Ph.D. candidate and laboratory manager for the Stewart Lab. Her interests include infectious disease microbiology, waste management justice, environmental justice, sustainable agriculture, and community climate resilience. Sarah is conducting her research in partnership with the Rural Empowerment Association for Community Help (REACH), a community-based organization located in Duplin County, North Carolina (NC), the epicenter of hog and poultry production in the world. Sarah’s work with REACH aims to characterize the disparate impact of industrial animal production processes on the health of underrepresented rural communities and the environment in NC. More specifically, her doctoral research evaluates the impact of antibiotic use in food animal production on the evolution and dissemination of antibiotic resistant bacteria among vulnerable populations, such as industrial hog operation workers and community members living near hog operations, in addition to key environmental reservoirs. Sarah hopes to complete her doctoral degree in May 2018.