Ariana is a Lab Assistant at ARAC and is currently a Sophomore in the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences. She is interested in pursuing a degree in Biological Anthropology and exploring her options for what to do in the future.
You Lian Weiner is an undergraduate research assistant at the ARAC. She is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Public Health with a minor in Chinese Language and Literature at The George Washington University’s Milken Institute School of Public Health. Previously, she has worked as a homecare worker and in GW's Cochlear Implant Communication Lab.
(January, 26, 2021, Washington, D.C.) Today, a coalition of animal welfare, consumer, public health, and environmental organizations called on grocery stores, restaurants and meat producers to reject the use of a misleading label scheme known as One Health CertifiedTM (OHC) and the standards behind it. The label was approved for use on chicken and turkey products in 2020 and is now being used by a handful of grocery store chains, including Aldi and BJ’s, and at least one restaurant chain.
Earlier this month, Cindy Liu and Lance Price co-authored a paper in Nature Microbiology along with colleagues from the University of Luxembourg showing how molecular parasites – including bacterial viruses and plasmids – shape bacterial populations in wastewater treatment plants over time. You may be asking: Why would public health researchers care about bacteria in wastewater treatment plants? It turns out that bacteria are the biochemical engines of these essential sanitation systems. Bacterial populations and communities can evolve over time effecting the performance of the system.
Janet is an undergraduate research assistant at ARAC. She is currently a third-year student pursuing a Bachelors of Science in Biological Science with a concentration of Cellular and Molecular Biology and a minor in Public Health. She is interested in clinical research and hopes to pursue a career in medicine in the future, specifically in Pediatrics.
A team of Milken Institute School of Public Health researchers, led by ARAC's Chief Medical Officer Cindy Liu, ensure George Washington University’s COVID-19 testing provides rapid, consistent and accurate results.
Tony is a research assistant at ARAC, working on numerous projects including characterizing the nasal microbiome. He received both his Bachelor’s in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology as well as his Master’s in Biotechnology from Boston University. His previous research includes studying microbial communities important to the nitrogen cycle at MIT.
Vanessa Quinlivan is a Senior Research Associate for ARAC. She completed her Ph.D in the Johns Hopkins University Dept. of Biology while working for the Carnegie Institution of Washington, where she studied fat and cholesterol metabolism using a larval zebrafish model. Previously, as a M.S. student at the College of William & Mary, she worked to characterize gene regulation in Helicobacter pylori.
Jack Villani is a Research Associate at ARAC. He holds a Bachelor’s in Biology from the College of William & Mary and a Master’s in Medical Microbiology from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. Prior to joining ARAC, he spent over two years at the National Institutes of Health investigating pathogenic mechanisms of poxviruses. As a graduate student, he studied orbiviruses, and as an undergraduate spent three years investigating mechanisms of bacterial gene regulation.
