Biofilm Research
This modelling conference gathered academics, engineering experts, and scientists specializing in modeling wastewater treatment processes from all around the world!
April 6 – 10, 2024
Yanina received her PhD this past April 3rd. Her dissertation was titled “Effect of Low-frequency Ultrasound on Antibiotic Susceptibility of Pseudomonas aeruginosa Biofilms”
Congratulations, Yanina!
Many of former and current members of the group gathered at Cloud’s Walking Cafe in South Bend to chat and enjoy a warm coffee. We caught up on each other’s lives, chatted about what’s next, and laughed over some hilarious lab memories!
It was truly special to see multiple generations of the ‘Nerenberg Lab’ come together in one place!
It was held in Dallas, Texas, between November 5-9.
He presented his work on water quality on shower hoses from chlorinated an non-chlorinated premise plumbing systems. Great job, Isaiah!
More info about this AWWA conference here
One of our projects was selected by the NBC group “What Would You Fight For?” and they came to film our group in action!
The video was shown on the field during the game day of Notre Dame Vs. Ireland
Here are some behind the scene pictures!!
Click here to enjoy the video!
We hosted our second Biofilm Course this past July 16-20!
Many participants attended, both from the US and even from abroad!
We went over biofilm microprofilling, from building microsensors to making some oxygen profiles. Also learnt about Biofilm modeling with AQUASIM and COMSOL and went over different types of biofilm reactors and how/when to use each of them. Biofilm imaging was also part of the course, including Confocal and EPI microscopes, and Optical Coherence Tomography.
We had wonderful lecturers: Christian Picioreanu, Erika Espinoa-Ortiz, Caitlin Proctor, Sara Cole, Ignacio Vargas, Marcerlo Aybar, Bumkyu Kim, and Rob Nerenberg.
Thank you all for coming!
Emily Clements defended her dissertation entitled “Effect of Demand Stochasticity on Microbial Quality of Premise Plumbing Systems.” Committee members included Caitlin Proctor of Purdue University, Kyle Doudrick, Kyle Bibby, and Rob Nerenberg. She did an outstanding job!
This 4th of July was a great opportunity to also celebrate the summer and welcome new members and visiting students!
Zoe Dumphy, a PhD student from Trinity College Dublin, came to visit us and learn new ways to grow biofilms under flow.
We also welcomed Fran and Cason as new grad students!!
Our group attended the conference on May 23-24, 2023 at the University of Michigan!
We showed our research on several posters and an oral presentation.
This past March 31th, we hosted the AEESP event with lots of attendees! We had oral presentations from wonderful speakers from Northwestern University, University of Notre Dame, Illinois Institute of Technology and Purdue University.
The distinguished lecturer was Dr. Cliff Davidson from Syracuse University, presenting “The Green Roof as a Complex System”.
Finally, we had an outstanding poster session.
Thank you all for coming!
The IWA – Biofilms 2022 was held in Phuket, Thailand on 6-8 December 2022, and topics included methods for biofilm characterizations, cell-cell communication, interactions with microplastics and nanoparticles and many others.
Rob was one of the Keynote speakers!
Emily presented two different research projects, one related to temperature effects on MABR reactors and the other about competition between suspended and biofilm bacteria in drinking water.
Erika Espinosa-Ortiz is an Assistant Research Professor working at the Center for Biofilm Engineering (CBE) at Montana State University. She won the NSF EPSCoR Research Infrastructure Improvement (RII) award to join our lab for a semester!
Erika’s work focuses on the use of engineered multi-domain biofilms for water, wastewater and soil remediation. In our group, she will be working with MABRs and microsensors, as well as fungal biofilms characterization.
Welcome Erika!!
Welcome Alejandro!
As part of a collaborative research between Dr. Nerenberg, Dr. Cerrone (ND, CEEES) and Dr. Martins (TCD, Microbiology), Yanina traveled to Dublin to get trained on several methodologies to study bacterial efflux systems when subjected to low frequency ultrasound. She spent two months at the Antimicrobial Resistant and Host Modulation Laboratory, led by Dr. Martins.
Yanina received funds from the Graduate Student Professional Development Awards (GSPDA) and from the Eck Institute for Global Health (EIGH)!
Emily presented a poster at the Gordon Research Conference on the Microbiome of the Built Environment, held in New Hampshire this week (June 19-24, 2022). The conference is about microbes at the Interface of water, air and human health in built environments. Emily presented her work on modeling water age in a premise plumbing system.
Great job, Emily!
BK and Mengfei received their diplomas this weekend! Congrats!
Isaiah is joining our lab this fall 2022!
He is currently finishing is undergraduate degree at the University of Notre Dame and has been doing research with us for the past two years. Welcome back Isaiah!
Today BK defended his dissertation titled “Effects and control of protozoan predation on biofilm processes for wastewater treatment”.
Congratulations BK!
Sarajane defended her Master dissertation, titled “Modeling the effect of Hydroxylamine addition on nitrifying biofilm communities”
Congrats Sarajane!
The first Wednesday of the month is always a good day to enjoy some coffee time all together!
We hosted another great virtual conference this past December, 2021.
Thanks again for participating in the Biofilm Reactors conference – your presence, contributions, and support made it a success!
Check the website
We had an amazing end of the year gathering. Former members also joined us, thanks for coming!!
We hosted our first virtual conference and had a great time! Amazing Workshops and presenters, and lots of great topics!
Thank you all for “coming”!
Check the website
