The Microbes and Social Equity working group was formed in 2019 to examine, publicize and promote a research program on the reciprocal impact of social inequality and microbiomes, both human and environmental. The group is comprised of researchers around the globe at all stages of career and with various specialties.
Group Mission Statement
The Microbes and Social Equity (MSE) Working Group posits that microbial exposures across ecosystems, urban and rural settings, and individuals are sociopolitical. Our purpose is to connect microbiology with social equity research, education, policy, and practice to understand the interplay of microorganisms, individuals, societies, and ecosystems. Collectively, we seek to generate and communicate knowledge that will spark evidence-based public policy and practice, supporting equity and sustainability for all.
Board of Directors
Dr. Amber Benezra, PhD., is a sociocultural anthropologist researching how studies of the human microbiome intersect with biomedical ethics, public health/technological infrastructures, and care. In partnership with human microbial ecologists, she is developing an “anthropology of microbes” to address global health problems across disciplines. Her book Gut Anthro: An Experiment in Thinking With. Microbes was published by University of Minnesota Press in May 2023. Gut Anthro is the first ethnography of the microbiome, and explores the challenges of transdisciplinary partnerships working on gut microbes and malnutrition.
Dr. Carla Bonilla, PhD., is an Associate Professor of Biology at the University of San Diego where she teaches Microbiology and Genetics. She also taught Molecular Biology, Genetics and Microbiomes at Gonzaga University for ten years. Her research tries to understand the responses by the bacterium Bacillus subtilis to environmental stress including antibiotic exposure. She uses critical pedagogy in the classroom to invite students to explore the connections between science and social justice. She is also the Chair of the MicroBio-LEAP Task Force working to promote inclusive leadership in the microbiological sciences
Dr. Katherine Darling, PhD., Assistant Professor of Health Sciences, University of Maine School of Nursing. Dr. Weatherford Darling’s research program stretches across two fields of interdisciplinary health science: 1) the ethical, legal and social implications (ELSI’s) of genomics 2) social determinants of health (SDOH). In the classroom, Professor Weatherford Darling uses experiential and project-based learning to empower students to apply sociological and clinical knowledge to real-life contexts. She currently mentors graduate students in Nursing, Higher Education, Biomedical Sciences & the Interdisciplinary PhD program.
Dr. Laura Grieneisen, PhD., is an assistant professor in microbiology at University of British Columbia- Okanagan. Her work focuses on how environmental stressors affect temporal variation in wild animal microbiomes, with the goal of understanding how host-associated microbial communities may respond to climate change.
Dr. Maya Hey, PhD.,Dr. Maya Hey is a postdoctoral researcher with the Centre for the Social Study of Microbes at the University of Helsinki. She studies the hands-on practices of fermentation and holds degrees in dietetics, food studies, and communications.
Patrick Horve, is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Oregon in the lab of Dr. Karen Guillemin. His dissertation work focuses on the role of microbially-secreted factors and their impact on the insulin-producing beta-cells in the pancreas. He is broadly interested in the interactions between microorganisms and the world around them, including the environment, other microorganisms, animals, and humans. Patrick hopes to encourage the combining of microbiology and social equity work and the promotion of evidence-based and equitable public policy.
Dr. Sue Ishaq, PhD., is an Assistant Professor of Animal and Veterinary Sciences, University of Maine; and founded MSE in 2020. She received her doctorate in Animal, Nutrition and Food Science from the University of Vermont in 2015 where she focused on the rumen microbiology of the moose. She held post-doctoral positions at Montana State University, and a research faculty position at the University of Oregon. Over the years, her research has gone from wild animal gut microbiomes, to soils, to buildings, and back to the gut. Since 2019, her lab in Maine focuses on host-associated microbial communities in animals and humans, and in particular, how host and microbes interact in the gut and can be harnessed to reduce inflammation. She is also the early-career At Large member of the Board of Directors for the American Society for Microbiology, 2024- 2027.
Dr. Aviâja Lyberth Hauptmann, PhD., is an Inuk [Inuit from Greenland] biologist working through the lens of microbiology to understand the microbial, historical and cultural relations between humans (inuit) and the Arctic learning especially from Indigenous foodways and fermentation practises in Greenland. In recent years her work has expanded from microbiology into questions on Indigenous food sovereignty for Arctic Indigenous peoples as well as Indigenous education for Greenlandic youth. Aviaja is an assistant professor at Ilisimatusarfik – the University of Greenland, where she is leading the SILA Team – a space in which a new biology program at Ilisimatusarfik is forming, as well as Ph.D.-projects working with themes of gastrophagy – the eating of intestines- as well as the role of Indigenous strengths including silence and being outside in science education. Aviaja also holds a part-time assistant professorship at the Globe Institute, the University of Copenhagen.
Dr. Kieran C. O’Doherty, PhD., is professor in the department of psychology at the University of Guelph, where he directs the Discourse, Science, Publics research Group. His research focuses on the social and ethical implications of science and technology and public engagement on science and technology. He has published on such topics as data governance, vaccines, human tissue biobanks, the human microbiome, salmon genomics, and genetic testing. A particular emphasis of his research is on theory and methods of public deliberation, in which members of the public are involved in collectively developing recommendations for the governance of science & technology. Recent edited volumes include Psychological Studies of Science and Technology (2019) and The Sage Handbook of Applied Social Psychology (2019). He is editor of Theory & Psychology.
Dr. Katherine Maki, PhD., is an Assistant Clinical Investigator in the Translational Biobehavioral and Health Disparities Branch at the National Institutes of Health, and the Head of the Biobehavioral and Integrated metagenOMics (BIOM) Unit. Dr. Maki is also a nurse practitioner and received her PhD from the University of Illinois at Chicago, College of Nursing. Her dissertation research examined the effects of chronic sleep disruption on the microbiome and cardiovascular system in rats. As a postdoctoral fellow, Dr. Maki worked on an interdisciplinary team on several intramural and extramural research protocols focusing on the human microbiome. She combines oral and gut microbiome analyses with biosignal and neuroimaging technology to study the gut-brain axis, and how it relates to health and disease. Dr. Maki is particularly interested in the relationship between environmental factors such as poor sleep and alcohol abuse with cardiovascular risk through microbial and metabolite mechanisms in humans.
Dr. Patricia G Wolf PhD, RD, completed her PhD in Nutritional Sciences with a focus on microbial sulfur metabolism at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. During her graduate training, she simultaneously completed the Didactic Program in Dietetics and became a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist. She then was a postdoctoral fellow in the Cancer Education and Career Development Program NCI T32 at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her research investigates microbial mechanisms of cancer health disparities related to inequitable food access and quality. To do so, she uses techniques in molecular microbiology and novel enzyme characterization to understand the metabolic capacity of the human gut microbiome. With her expertise in nutrition and dietetics, she then examines whether dietary intake shifts microbial ecology and function toward the formation of deleterious microbial metabolites contributing to cancer risk. Given that dietary behaviors are shaped by the social and structural environment, her future work will explore relationships between the neighborhood food environment and microbial metabolism in order to mitigate the inequitable burden of cancer in certain groups.
General Secretary
Dr. Ashley Toney, PhD., RDN, is a Postdoc Fellow at Cleveland Clinic Lerner Research Institute. Ashley has worked with MSE since Fall 2021. She currently works in the Stacy Lab at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner Research Institute as a postdoc fellow studying the role of nitrate in health and disease. She is also a registered dietitian with expertise in Latino/a/e health and nutrition. Besides MSE, Ashley serves on several committees including the American Society for Nutrition (ASN) Early Career Nutrition Executive Committee as Chair-Elect and ASN’s Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility (IDEA) Executive Committee. Ashley’s vision for MSE is to provide evidence-based information and clarification on nuanced topics involved in microbiome research – particularly in the field of nutrition science. She sees the future of MSE as a thought leader in integrating social, economic, basic and other sciences/fields to build conversations around ethical ways of conducting science – especially microbiome science.
Global Classroom Curriculum Coordinator
Dr. Erin Eggleston, PhD., is an Assistant Professor of Biology at Middlebury College. She is a molecular microbial ecologist with diverse interests in cyanobacterial harmful algal blooms, extreme archaea, coral reef symbionts and stress resilience, and the relationships between environmental microbes and environmental justice. She has taught at six different academic institutions and is invested in authentic, student-driven pedagogies. In addition to her passion for science and education, Dr. Eggleston is an avid rock climber, gardener, and reader of speculative fiction.
Logistics Managers
Tammy Walsky
Co-Website Developer
Tammy is a current PhD student in Food Science at Cornell University. Her research uses metagenomics to chart how environmental conditions affect the microbial communities on and spoilage of fresh spinach in order to develop better models predicting the shelf life of fresh produce.
Erica Gardner
Co-Website Developer
Erica is a PhD student and NSF Graduate Research Fellow in Chemical Engineering at University of Michigan. She researches plastic biodegradation by the microbiota of insect larvae.
Founding Members
In 2019, Sue Ishaq asked a simple question: “What do microbes have to do with social equity?” What began as a thought exercise became an undergraduate colloquium course at the University of Oregon Honors College (Ishaq, 2019), which manifested an essay coauthored by the students and myself (Ishaq et al., 2019 PloS Biology). The essay attracted the attention of scientists, and in early 2020, Sue formed the Microbes and Social Equity working group. This has since grown into an international community of researchers representing diverse fields: anthropology, architecture, bioethics, data science, ecology, engineering, genetics, medicine, microbiology, nutrition, psychology, sociology, and more. In 2021, 35 MSE members wrote our inaugural publication (Ishaq et al. 2021) introducing the group, establishing our mission statement, and outlining our goals.
Sue Ishaq, PhD.
MSE Founder and Lead
Sue is an Assistant Professor of Animal and Veterinary Sciences at the University of Maine.
Ishaq et al. 2019 PloS Biology authors: Suzanne L. Ishaq, Maurisa Rapp, Risa Byerly, Loretta S. McClellan, Maya R. O’Boyle, Anika Nykanen, Patrick J. Fuller, Calvin Aas, Jude M. Stone, Sean Killpatrick, Manami M. Uptegrove, Alex Vischer, Hannah Wolf, Fiona Smallman, Houston Eymann, Simon Narode, Ellee Stapleton, Camille C. Cioffi, Hannah F. Tavalire
Ishaq et al. 2021 mSystems authors: Suzanne L. Ishaq, Francisco J. Parada, Patricia G. Wolf, Carla Y. Bonilla, Megan A. Carney, Amber Benezra, Emily Wissel, Michael Friedman, Kristen M. DeAngelis, Jake M. Robinson, Ashkaan K. Fahimipour, Melissa B. Manus, Laura Grieneisen, Leslie G. Dietz, Ashish Pathak, Ashvini Chauhan, Sahana Kuthyar, Justin D. Stewart, Mauna R. Dasari, Emily Nonnamaker, Mallory Choudoir, Patrick F. Horve, Naupaka B. Zimmerman, Ariangela J. Kozik, Katherine Weatherford Darling, Adriana L. Romero-Olivares, Janani Hariharan, Nicole Farmer, Katherine A. Maki, Jackie L. Collier, Kieran C. O’Doherty, Jeffrey Letourneau, Jeff Kline, Peter L. Moses, Nicolae Morar