I am generally interested in environmental microbiology and microbial ecology, and particularly in how physical, chemical, and biological processes in the environment affect the distribution and transport of microbes.  I'm currently working with bacteria from the genus Enterococcus, which are abundant in the guts of humans (and many other vertebrates) and so are widely used as indicators of human health risks from fecal pollution in environmental waters.  I have conducted field and lab experiments to try to characterize how the presence of submerged aquatic vegetation may facilitate the long-term persistence of culturable enterococci in natural water bodies, and I am now using genetic techniques to investigate how the population structure of the enterococci sampled in those experiments differs among various substrates, locations, and seasons.  I am also conducting additional field experiments to determine how differing hydrodynamic forces (as might result from natural currents and waves) act to resuspend culturable enterococci from aquatic sediments back into the water column.  Through this work I hope to contribute more understanding about the ecology of persistent strains enterococci and how they may affect our ability to use enterococci and other bacteria as indicators of water quality.