knoxville news
knoxville news knoxville daily sun lifestyle business knoxville sports travel knoxville classifieds knoxville jobs knoxville legal notices knoxville yellow pages smoky mountains contact facebook twitter linkedin rss entertainment knoxville advertising
 

UT food science student receives prestigious undergraduate research award

ariel buehler
The American Society for Microbiology (ASM) has selected Ariel Buehler, a food science and technology senior in the University of Tennessee College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, to receive a 2013 ASM Undergraduate Research Fellowship. Buehler is shown sampling microgreens in the UT food microbiology lab. Photo by A. Houck.


 

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Ariel Buehler, a food science and technology senior in the University of Tennessee College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, has been selected by the American Society for Microbiology (ASM) to receive a 2013 ASM Undergraduate Research Fellowship. Buehler is also a member of the 2010 class of Haslam Scholars at the university.

The ASM student research fellowship is awarded to highly competitive students who wish to pursue graduate careers in microbiology. Fellows have the opportunity to conduct full time research at their institution with an ASM mentor.

Of this year’s 138 applicants, 37 students received awards.

Drs. David Golden and Faith Critzer from the Department of Food Science and Technology are Buehler’s mentors. The title of Buehler’s research project is Microgreens: Use of Green Fluorescent Proteins to Evaluate Survival of Shiga Toxigenic Escherichia coli (STEC). Microgreens are a new specialty salad green and garnish that are being utilized in the high-end dining community. Due to their novelty, little is known about the survival of foodborne pathogens, such as Escherichia coil O157:H7, in the plant. Buehler’s research aims to determine where the risk for E. coli contamination is highest in the microgreen plant by evaluating the survival of E. coli O157:H7 in microgreens as well as utilizing fluorescent microscopy to visualize colonization of E. coli O157:H7 in the plant.

The American Society for Microbiology (ASM), headquartered in Washington, D.C., is the oldest and largest biological sciences membership organization, with more than 37,000 members worldwide. Visit www.asm.org/students for more information on this fellowship. Each fellow will receive up to a $4,000 stipend, a two-year ASM student membership and funding for travel expenses to the ASM Capstone Institute and 114th ASM General Meeting. If their abstract is accepted, award recipients may also present their research results at the 114th ASM General Meeting, which in 2014 will be in Boston, Mass.

The Department of Food Science and Technology is one of eight teaching departments in the UT College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources. It offers students unique hands-on learning experiences. The UT Institute of Agriculture also provides instruction, research and public service through the UT College of Veterinary Medicine, UT AgResearch, and its system of 10 research and education centers, and UT Extension offices in every county in the state.

Buehler is the daughter of UT professor of wildlife science David Buehler and Beth Buehler of Knoxville. She attended Farragut High School. In 2012 she was also named as a Barry M. Goldwater Scholar, a national award.

For more information about UTIA and the College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, visit: www.ag.tennessee.edu.

Published November 1, 2013





knoxville daily sun Knoxville Daily Sun
2013 Image Builders
User Agreement | Privacy Policy