Stephanie Nomoto
Bio:
Stephanie Nomoto is a senior expected to graduate in December 2023 in Biosystems Engineering with a concentration in biomedical engineering and a minor in Public Health and Epidemiology. During her time at Michigan State University, she has been involved in the Risk Modeling laboratory since May 2022 and presented various projects at different conferences such as the University Undergraduate Research and Arts Forum (UURAF) and Mid-Michigan Symposium for Undergraduate Research Experiences (Mid-SURE).
Research:
Microbial Source Tracking (MST) are methods used to identify host-specific markers in microbial populations in different environments, allowing researchers to track the source of contamination (i.e., cattle, swine, humans) and their exposure to the public. For this project, the focus was on surface waters varying from marine and freshwater with different environmental conditions such as temperature, sunlight exposure, and predation. To ensure their usefulness, we need to understand MST markers’ persistence in comparison to pathogens being tracked in these surface waters. A systematic literature review and meta-analysis were completed to better understand MST markers’ decay rates depending on the environmental conditions.