Research

To overcome the unique challenges of surviving as single celled organisms, microbes perform a variety of cooperative, multicellular behaviors, including biofilm formation, quorum sensing, nutrient acquisition, and dispersal. I study the dynamics of these social interactions in the opportunistic pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a gram negative bacterium that exhibits a wide range of social behaviors. I am specifically interested in cooperation, competition, and cheating in iron acquisition, and plan to study these interactions using competition experiments, single celled analysis, and mathematic modeling.