CBE Seminar Series

The CBE Seminar Series is organized to host experts from both academia and industry to present their research and share their expertise in biofilm research and innovation. Each semester, a committee of CBE graduate students and staff invite and host the colleagues and visitors (on and off-campus) who present at this seminar series.

The CBE 2024-2025 seminar organizing committee

Kristen Connolly, Technical Operations Manager
Kristen Griffin, Communications & Marketing
Jake Marquis, PhD student, Microbiology & Cell Biology
Ghazal Vahidi, Postdoctoral Researcher, CBE
Ethan Viles, PhD student, Mechanical & Industrial Engineering
Kathryn Zimlich, PhD student, Microbiology & Cell Biology

If you have feedback or a speaker suggestion for the CBE Seminar Series, please contact a member of the organizing committee.

Spring 2025 Schedule

Thursdays
2:10 p.m.–3:00 p.m. Mountain Time (MT) *unless otherwise noted below
Location: In-person at Barnard 108 unless otherwise noted below

Date	Speaker	Affiliation	Presentation Title
01/23* @ 9:00 a.m. via Webex	Dr. Elenora Secchi	Senior Scientist, Biomatter Microfluidics, ETH Zurich	The role of fluid dynamics in driving biofilm formation, rheology, and clogging dynamics
01/30	No Seminar
02/06	No Seminar
02/13	Dr. Luke McKay	Manager, Systems Biology, LanzaTech	Creating a circular carbon economy through bacterial gas fermentation
02/20	No Seminar
02/27	Chelsea Heveran	Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering, Montana State University, Center for Biofilm Engineering	Lessons from bone in the design of living building materials
03/06	No Seminar
03/11* @1:00 p.m. Barnard 126 in-person	Dr. Bruce Fouke	Ralph E. Grim Professor, Earth Science & Environmental Change, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign	Mammoth Hot Springs travertine: A lexicon for deciphering the hydrology and last flow of ancient Rome’s Anio Novus Aqueduct
03/20	No Seminar - Spring Break
03/27	CBE Undergraduate Researcher Day Featuring: Amanda Haab Thomson McCarthy Grayson Robles	Microbiology & Cell Biology, Montana State University, Center for Biofilm Engineering, Advisor: Dr. Elizabeth Sandvik Applied Mathematics, Montana State University, Center for Biofilm Engineering, Advisor: Dr. James Crawford Cell Biology and Neuroscience, Montana State University, Center for Biofilm Engineering, Advisor: Dr. Garth James	Development of tagged consortium for the study of microbial interaction and colonization patterns between fungus and bacteria relevant to the ISS Automated Enzyme-MOF comparisons: Leveraging computational tools for biomimetic design Evaluation of novel irrigation solutions for biofilm reduction in long-term foley catheters
04/03	Dr. Jerod Skyberg	Assistant Professor, Microbiology and Cell Biology, Montana State University	Metabolic control of brucellosis
04/10	No Seminar
04/17	Daniel Juliano Jessica Murdock	Director, Technology Transfer Office, Montana State University Program Manager, Technology Transfer Office, Montana State University	Sealed with silence: Navigating the power of a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA)
04/24	Roos Goedhart	PhD Candidate TU Delft, Water Management	How bacteria treat our drinking water
05/01 *starts at 2:00 p.m.	Dr. Taylor Ware	Associate Professor, Biomedical Engineering, Materials Science and Engineering, Texas A&M University	Proliferation-driven function in engineered living materials