Undergraduate Training in Research Cooperation between NSF Project Objectives and the Fralin SURF Program

Our program has a large focus on undergraduate training with numerous students benefiting from the  international training experience provided by this project. The project focus of science and discovery coupled with outreach in human - environmental interactions provides a unique environment to develop the next generation of multidisciplinary scientists focused on coupled human environmental interactions.  As a Fralin Summer Undergraduate Research Fellow, (SURF), Kathy Battle (above) spent her 2012 summer semester, and then subsequently, the 2012 fall semester, in the Alexander Wildlife Health and Disease Ecology Lab working on this project gaining valuable experience from the Post doctoral and graduate students supported under this program. Her work was focused on assisting Dr. Jobbins (a post doctoral associate) in examining Escherichia coli from fecal samples collected from wildlife. E. coli can be found in most mammalian guts and is used as a model for understanding how microorganisms might move between humans and animals. Detection of antibiotic resistant E.coli in wildlife can be an important signal that human microorganisms are indeed moving across the landscape.