People

Arpita Bose (PI)

I am Arpita Bose, an Associate Professor of Microbiology and a Fulbright US Scholar, Packard Foundation Fellow, a Climatebase fellow and an Anant Fellow for Climate Action in the Department of Biology at Washington University in St. Louis (WUSTL) with a courtesy appointment in the WUSTL Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and an affiliation with the Environmental Studies Program at WUSTL. I am a Board of Trustee for the Society of Applied Microbiology, the oldest microbiology society of the United Kingdom. I am also a Biodiversity fellow for the Living Earth Collaborative at WUSTl. I am also an affiliate faculty at the Center for Water Innovation. I am Indian - American and have lived all over the world! If you like microbes, cool gadgets, the evolution of life and/or orchids just drop by my lab for some coffee anytime!

In my time at WUSTL, I have received the Packard Fellowship in 2015, the Changing the Face of STEM Mentorship award from L'Oreal and AAAS in 2017 and 2019 and the Anant Fellowship for Climate Action by MIT Solve and Terra.do in 2021. In 2022, I was chosen as a founding Climatebase fellow. I have also received Department of Defense Mentorship Awards in 2019, 2020 and 2021. I received the DURIP Award from the Department of Defense in 2019 and the Geobiology and Geomicrobiology Contributions Award from the Geological Society of America. I was a Moore Inventor Finalist in 2019 and was nominated for the SN10 Scientists to Watch by Science News in 2020. For the 2021 Graduate Commencement Ceremony at WUSTL, I was honored as the Faculty Marshal. I was selected as a finalist for the New Voices Cohort for the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine in 2021. In 2021, I received the Washington University Distinguished Teaching Award.

At WUSTL, I am a Board Member for the Association of Women Faculty, a Board Member for the WUSTL Undergraduate consulting group, Bear Studios, a member of the inaugural WUSTL Doctoral Council, and a member of the WUSTL Undergraduate Research Advisory Committee.

I am currently an Associate Editor at Applied and Environmental Microbiology and Frontiers in Microbiology, an Editor of Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology, Frontiers in Energy Research, and an Editor of Journal of Bacteriology and Microbiology Spectrum.

I am a GlobalConscience.World Ambassador and an Island Ambassador. In 2022, I was a jury member for Businessworld India's Most Sustainable Companies ranking.

During my graduate work and post-doctoral research, I used genetics, biochemistry and molecular biology to understand microbial metabolism. My Master’s research at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, dealt with understanding the physiological response of Mycobacterium tuberculosis to hypoxia. For my PhD research I studied methanogenesis performed by the poorly understood archaea, in the lab of Prof. William Metcalf at the University of Illinois at Urbana. During this period I took, and subsequently taught, the Microbial Diversity Summer course at the Marine Biological Laboratory. I taught the course again in 2014 before moving to St. Louis and highly recommend it to budding geomicrobiologists.

I was a Howard Hughes Medical Institute research associate for a year in the lab of Prof. Dianne Newman at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where I studied photoferrotrophy performed by purple non sulfur bacteria. I thereafter moved to Prof. Peter Girguis' lab at Harvard University, where I used a combinatorial approach to study microbial metabolism at the environmental level. At Harvard my research was funded by the Life Sciences Research Foundation (LSRF) and Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) via an HHMI sponsored LSRF Postdoctoral Fellowship, and by L'Oreal USA, AAAS, UNESCO via the L'Oreal USA Women In Science Fellowship, and the US Department of Energy.

My research focuses on understanding various microbial metabolisms. I intend to apply this basic understanding of microbial metabolism to engineer microbial systems for sustainable biochemical & bioenergy production as well as tackle issues such as bioremediation and biofouling. I also hope that my research would reveal basic geomicrobiological phenomena that shape our planet and possibly others.

Staff Scientist

I am Karthikeyan Rengasamy, a Staff Scientist in the Bose lab. I graduated with a PhD (Chemistry) in the field of Microbial Fuel Cells (2007-2012, Central electrochemical research institute, CSIR-CECRI, India). Before joining the Bose lab, I worked as a post-doctoral fellow (2012-2015) in the City University of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong Baptist University. My research interests revolve around using bioelectrochemistry to address key environmental issues such as bioremediation and the energy crisis. I am from Singapore!

ORCID: 0009-0002-5486-2653

Lab Manager

I am Tahina Ranaivoarisoa, a lab manager in the Bose Lab. I graduated from the University of Missouri St-Louis with an MS in Biochemistry/Biotechnology where I studied the role of the Type Six Secretion System of the bacterial plant pathogen Pseudomonas syringae pathovars syringae and phaseolicola in the Schechter lab. I then joined the Sherritt International where I worked at the analytical laboratory of one of the largest Nickel and Cobalt mining projects in the world. I am from Madagascar and I am a US citizen!

Graduate Student

Eric Conners

ORCID: 0000-0002-0664-307X

Graduate Student

Emily Davenport

ORCID: 0000-0003-4618-9155

Graduate Student

Andreea Stoica (Joint with Mark Meacham in Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and Josh Blodgett in Biology)

ORCID: 0009-0008-3064-2174

Graduate Student

Brian Gallagher

ORCID: 0000-0002-7707-1371

Graduate Student

Hailee Morrison

ORCID: 0000-0002-2512-1824

Visiting Graduate Student

Fer Muniesa

Visiting Graduate Student

Nida Zainab

Research Technician

Kayla Betts

Research Technician

Thinh Vu

Research Technician

Ale Santana (Joint with Blodgett Lab)

Undergraduate

Cindy Chao

Undergraduate

Prem Prabhakar

Undergraduate

Anjali Rajkumar

Undergraduate

Jason Wang

Undergraduate

Gavin Yao

Visiting Student (Undergraduate)

Aiyana Evers

Visiting Student (Undergraduate)

Anna Yang

Visiting Student (Undergraduate)

Josslyn Gura - Packard 2023