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Upon graduation our students receive first-class up to date training and the right credentials sought by employers in the job market |
 Trenton Owens obtained in 2014 dual B.S. degrees in Molecular Biology, Environmental Economics & Policy at University of California Berkeley. He was accepted to NCSU Graduate School during Fall 2021 and was member of the Genetics and Genomics Fellowship 2021 cohort. Later, He joined Bruno’s lab in Spring 2022 to successfully complete a Master in Microbiology.
As member of the Bruno’s Lab, he worked with Azotobacter vinelandii where he applied his passion for growing things using bioprocesing methods. |
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Trenton was born and raised in San Diego, California. After watching his father tend his impressive garden and grow his horticulture business, Trenton developed a passion for cultivation and agriculture. In the process of exploring molecular biology at UC Berkeley’s College of Natural Resources, he was introduced to natural resource economics and agricultural ecology. Since then, he was inspired to innovate agriculture using the power of genetics. After graduation, Trenton worked at the United States Department of Agriculture to develop strains of hypoallergenic wheat. He then transitioned to the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory as a research associate, developing high-throughput functional genomics tools in bacteria and fabricated ecosystems for rhizosphere microbiome analysis. This experience convinced him of the outsized role microbes will play in tomorrow’s agriculture. Inspired by the amazing talent he met at the National Lab, he applied to microbiology graduate programs with a strong emphasis on agriculture, applied biology, and partnership with industry. Trenton joined NCSU Microbiology in 2021 as part of the Genetics and Genomics Scholarship program, which he is very grateful for. He joined the Bruno lab to apply his passion for growing things to the methods of bioproduction. As part of the Bruno’s Lab, he is working with Azotobacter vinelandii |
Madiha Nazir gradruated with PhD in Microbiology during Fall of 2022. In 2012, she obtained a B.S. in Biotechnology – Islamia University of Bahawalpur – Pakistan 2015 M.S. National Institute for Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering (NIBGE) in Faisalabad, Pakistan
E-mail: mnazir(at)ncsu.edu |
She joined our lab from fall 2017 to 2022 after receiving a Fulbright Fellowship.| Madiha grew up in South Punjab’s city Bahawalpur, in Pakistan. She is an explorer with curiosity, fond of understanding glitches and finding their solution by self-exploration, since her childhood. She graduated from the Islamia University of Bahawalpur in 2012, in the field of Biotechnology, with distinction (silver medal). Her undergrad years in the biotechnology labs of the university was the time when she got intrigued by research in biological sciences, and decided to pursue her career in the same. After undergraduate studies, she joined National Institute for Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering (NIBGE) in Faisalabad, Pakistan for M.Phil. studies.
She worked on anaerobic digestion of agricultural biomass during her M.Phil. During this project, she optimized fermentation process for bioenergy production from kallar grass and wheat straw using cow dung as source of microbial consortia. Moreover, her work also involved the expression of alpha amylase gene in bacteria. In 2016, she won a research fellowship by GINI foundation and joined University of Padova, Italy, and continued her passion of working on bioenergy production. She identified various microbial communities involved in the digestion of food wastes using Next-Generation Sequencing during this stay. At NCSU, currently, she is planning her research, under the guidance of Dr. Bruno, on a Clostridium strain to enhance the biobutanol production by designing a method for genetic manipulation of the strain to produce merchantable quantities of n-butanol, acetone, and ethanol. Apart from her research and academic activities, Madiha is fond of traveling, experiencing new cultures, and social work. She runs a page “I can be someone” on facebook for targeting the education of girls in the under developed areas of Pakistan. She also loves to play badminton and table tennis. |
 Hunter Whittington candidate to PhD in Microbiology2013 B.S. in Microbiology – NC State University E-mail: hdwhitt(at)ncsu.edu |
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A North Carolina native, Hunter was born in the beautiful city of Asheville, but has lived all over the state. His fascination with the sciences was evident at an early age, as he spent much of his time collecting rocks and experimenting with chemistry.
In high school, Hunter’s interest in microbiology piqued when he performed a simple bacterial transformation experiment in his AP Biology class. Several long discussions later, Hunter knew that he wanted to perform microbiological research. For various silly reasons, Hunter decided to pursue a degree in Biomedical Engineering at NC State and after a semester of struggling through boring engineering classes, he knew something had to change. After a brief meeting with Dr. Jim Brown, Hunter changed his major and eventually earned his Bachelor’s degree in microbiology. After graduating Hunter spent a year in the NCSU Department of Plant Pathology developing real-time PCR quantification assays for different plant pathogens. He then spent some time working as a technician at the Duke Human Vaccine Institute before returning to NC State to pursue his Ph.D. Outside of science, Hunter enjoys spending his time hiking, backpacking, rockhounding and cooking. |
Jace Natzke candidate to PhD in Microbiology 2014 B.S. in Microbiology -The University of Tennessee He joined our lab fall 2016 after received a Teaching assistantship at NCSU. E-mail: jmnatzke(at)ncsu.edu |
| Jace Natzke was born in Colorado, raised in Tennessee, and now lives in North Carolina. He enjoys camping, hiking, and playing soccer. He also enjoys the thrill of sitting around at home doing absolutely nothing.
After graduating from the University of Tennessee in 2014, Jace began working on developing second generation biofuels for the Department of Energy at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. His work has been included on several publications and he has presented his research at various scientific conferences. Jace is continuing his work on biofuels as a graduate student at North Carolina State University. He is working with Azotobacter vinelandii and looks forward to making an impact on the diverse and challenging field of biofuels. |
 Jesse Noar
2016 Ph.D. Microbiology—N.C. State University
B.A. Biology/Microbiology Cornell University He is a employee of Medicago, Inc. since January 2017. Jesse’s BacterioFiles are always a good source of information E-mail: jdnoar(at)ncsu.edu |
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Jesse Noar grew up in some suburbs of New Jersey, but despite that has always been pretty fond of nature. He spent a good amount of time playing outdoors and reading about how things work. In high school, an especially good biology teacher introduced Jesse to techniques of microbiological culture and told him to separate and identify the organisms in a mixed culture, which he found so enjoyable that he decided to make a career of studying bacteria. In his undergraduate years at Cornell University, Jesse did well in his microbiology classes and also worked in several labs, gaining experience and research enough to complete an honors thesis. After graduating, he decided to remain in his current lab and gather enough data to publish his first scientific journal article. With a few years’ worth of research experience under his belt, Jesse decided that it was time to aim for a PhD, and enrolled in the Microbiology graduate program at North Carolina State University, working in the lab of Dr. Bruno-Bárcena. Initially funded by the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at NCSU and from July 2011 by a NSF graduate research fellowship, he is currently researching a strain of diazotroph that has the potential to produce marketable quantities of hydrogen. |
 Walter Javier Sandoval Espinosa
2016 Ph.D. Microbiology—N.C. State University 2011 M.S. Microbiology—N.C. State University 2009 Bachelor of Science, Biology – Universidad Nacional de Asunción (UNA) San Lorenzo, Paraguay E-mail: wjsandov(at)ncsu.edu 2009-2011 FULBRIGHT Fellow 2016 Kenneth R. Keller Award – NCSU He is a Postdoctoral fellow – Balskus Group at Harvard University |
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Walter was awarded in 2009 with a Fulbright scholarship. He grew up in the city of Luque, near Asuncion, the Capital city of from Paraguay. While he was an undergrad student, with a major in Biology, he also worked in the Quality Control department of a meat processing plant. This is where he got more interested in bacteria, his current major in grad school. After obtaining his bachelor degree at the Universidad Nacional de Asuncion, he was offered the possibility to study in several universities in the U.S. as well as in the U.K. He finally decided to come to North Carolina State University. His research is focused in second generation biofuel, specifically, producing biobutanol using a mutant strain of Clostridium with a non-food carbon source as the substrate. His aim is to improve the productivity of this biofuel so that it can become cost-competitive compared with fossil fuels. This, he says, will help society become more independent of petroleum, and all the geopolitical and contamination issues that this fossil fuel carries with it. Besides science, he is also an amateur photographer who really enjoys the outdoors. From the highlands to the beach, you might always find him taking pictures. He likes art in most of its expression. In the end, he says, science is a form of art. |
Alicia Cox 2015 B.S. Microbiology—N.C. State University She joined our lab until graduation on her senior undergraduate year. She is a emplojee of Merck & Co., Inc. since January 2016 E-mail: acox(at)ncsu.edu |
| Alicia is an outstanding scholar from Raleigh. She grew up in the city of oaks where would like to receive graduate level education.
She has been the recipient of the summer 2015 research grant from the office of undergraduate research at NCSU. In recognition of her high academic achievement, the Department of Microbiology and the College of Sciences have chosen her as the recipient of the Dr. Elizabeth S. Haas Memorial Research Endowment for Women in Microbiology for the 2015-2016 academic year. |
 Lorenzo Blanco
Visiting Senior Undergraduate (2015) student majoring in Agricultural Engineering by the Escuela técnica superior de Ingenieros Agrónomos y de Montes (ETSIAM) at Cordoba University, Spain E-mail: lorenbm91(at)gmail.com |
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Lorenzo is an quasi-Agriculture Engineer from Spain. He will graduate from Cordova University and would like to receive graduate level education.
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2012 M.S. in Microbiology – NC State University 2008 B.S. in Microbiology – NC State University Presently Senior Production Technician E-mail: stmakwan(at)gmail.com |
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Satya always believed that “It’s the little things in life that count.” And with that outlook, began his love for microbiology. As an undergraduate Satya worked in research labs while maintaining good academic standing. In fact, one of the research labs he worked in was the Bruno-Barcena lab. There he gained experience in molecular biology, and bioprocessing. Satya wanted to further his knowledge of bioprocessing and the pharmaceutical industry by working at the CMO Diosynth Biotechnology. Within a year of working there he was promoted to Senior Production Technician and took part in responsibilities including production, quality assurance, quality control, and validation. He also authored an SOP, and other cGMP documents. After about 3 years of working in industry, Satya decided it was time to go back to school and begin his graduate career with the Bruno-Barcena lab. In the lab he studied a strain of solvent producing bacteria. The solvents produced by this bacteria has many industrial applications. He graduated as Masters of Science in Microbiology and plans to pursue a PhD degree upon completion of the Masters program. |
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2008 Ph.D. Microbiology—N.C. State University E-mail: matthew.evans4136(at)gmail.com |
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Dr. Matthew R. Evans, a Senior Associate Scientist in Quality Control (QC) Microbiology at Pfizer. Currently, he develops scientific methods; designs and conducts chemical and biological assays; writes validation and qualification protocols and reports and method assessments; writes and revises standard operating procedures (SOPs); reviews and validates data; trains and mentors analysts in new and existing procedures methods according to governmental regulations; and provides technical knowledge and support in order to troubleshoot and resolve scientific issues. |
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1984 BS Chemical Engineering -National Univ. of Tucuman E-mail: humbertoheluane@yahoo.com.ar |
| He is an expert in process optimization with extensive experience in bioreactor operation and academic teaching. |
 Deiaa Gad el-rab M.S. candidate to Ph.D. in Microbiology 2003 MS of Science in Agricultural Sciences Cairo University Egypt |
| Researcher Assistant – Food Industry and Nutrition Division – National Research center. He was a visiting fellow from Egypt |
 Carolina Caro
2012 BS in Microbiology with a minor in Genetics. E-mail: cpcaro(at)ncsu.edu |
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CALS honors outstanding student with a 4.0 overall major GPA, graduated as a valedictorian of her class.
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