Robert W. Woolner Undergraduate Summer Research Studentship in One Health

Stage 1 (Project Abstracts – Submitted by Faculty)

How to Apply

Please submit a project proposal.

To complete the application you will need the following information at hand: 

• Your name, affiliation and contact information
• Proposed start date
• Project title
• Project proposal description (1/2 page or 250 words)
• At least one project objective and a description of why a One Health approach is necessary to achieve this objective
• A short description of the role for the student in this project

Evaluation Process and Criteria

The Director, One Health Institute will select the project for funding based on the following criteria:

• Relevance / alignment of the proposed research with One Health
• Clarity and feasibility of the research objectives and experimental plan
• Suitability of the project for DVM and undergraduate summer research students
• Availability of operating funds and infrastructure for the summer research project

Students interested in working on a specific summer research project will contact faculty members directly.

Award Administration

Once the faculty member chooses a successful candidate, please cc OHI Program Manager, Katherine Heyland (heylandk@uoguelph.ca), on your email to the student confirming the upcoming appointment.

About the Project:

Little brown bats (Myotis lucifugus) are an endangered species in Canada that host a wide range of parasites and pathogens of human health concern. Among them is Bartonella, a bacterial pathogen that may be transmitted among hosts, including humans. Most Bartonella infections in humans require antibiotic treatment. In rare cases, infections may be fatal. Our project will determine the extent to which Bartonella exists within bats and their ectoparasite communities (bat fleas, flies, and bugs) in Ontario.

About the Professor:

Quinn Webber is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Integrative Biology at the University of Guelph’s College of Biological Science. The Webber lab studies the causes and consequences of animal behaviour. Specifically, the lab looks at how individual behavioural and environmental variations affect bats’ and caribous’ fitness and disease outcomes. The implications of this work are wide-ranging and include contributing to (1) the development of theory and methods, (2) One Health initiatives, and (3) the conservation and management of species at risk.

About the Student:

Marie Cera is a fourth-year student majoring in Biological Science and minoring in Zoology. Under the mentorship of Dr. Webber, she has been conducting field and lab work throughout summer ’23, focusing on the study of Bartonella in little brown bats (Myotis lucifugus). Marie captures, tags, and measures bats to understand disease prevalence and transmission patterns of Bartonella. Marie is passionate about exploring the connections between wildlife conservation and human health, particularly with respect to the co-existence of bats and humans.

About the Project:

Rotational grazing is highly beneficial for soil health; however, widespread adoption of this practice is still lacking. Anecdotally, rotational grazing has been associated with claims of reduced antimicrobial use and evidence of this benefit could serve as an added incentive for farmers to adopt this management strategy. This project aims to use a One Health approach to evaluate if
rotational grazing practices can reduce the need for pharmaceutical interventions and subsequently reduce the presence of pathogens and antimicrobial-resistant (AMR) bacteria in livestock and the receiving environment. Data collected will include antimicrobial usage on farm, pathogen and AMR bacteria in cattle and wildlife fecal samples, groundwater and adjacent surface waters. The results will inform the Ontario Agri-Food sector on the suitability of rotational grazing for reducing the spread of pathogens and AMR bacteria into the environment while ensuring animal health and welfare.

About the Professor:

Heather Murphy is an Associate Professor in the Department of Pathobiology at the University of Guelph’s Ontario Veterinary College. Dr. Murphy’s research interests involve understanding and addressing water and health challenges in both developed and developing countries. Dr. Murphy leads the Water, Health and Applied Microbiology (WHAM) Lab. Her research focuses on four key areas related to microbial quality of water and public health: 1. Surface water quality and recreation, 2. The impact of septic systems and agricultural activity on private wells, 3. Microbial Ecology of drinking water distribution systems, and 4. Water and Sanitation challenges in resource-limited settings. 

About the Student:

Erica Hollmann is a fifth-year Microbiology Co-op student. Erica is interested in exploring antimicrobial resistance and its effects on microorganisms. During the Summer of 2023, Erica is working with Dr. Heather Murphy to evaluate the potential advantages of rotational grazing in promoting soil health.

As part of her research, Erica is gaining firsthand experience by collecting water and soil samples directly from a beef cattle farm. She is actively processing, analyzing and studying the collected samples in Dr. Murphy’s Water, Health And Applied Microbiology (WHAM) lab. This hands-on approach gives Erica a chance to delve into the applied aspects of her research as she further develops her scientific skills and knowledge.

About the Project:

Cyanobacterial harmful algal blooms (HABs) have negative impacts on communities, animals including pets, livestock, and wildlife and there is a need to identify and analyse the detailed biotic and abiotic conditions surrounding HABs. In this project, we use water quality data and microbial diversity measurements and integrate them with bloom frequency and intensity in model lakes. We are looking to recruit a highly motivated student, interested in tackling this complex problem using a OneHealth approach, including bioinformatics analysis and benchtop experimentation

About the Professor:

Andreas Heyland is a Professor in the Department of Integrative Biology at the University of Guelph. His work broadly focuses on the endocrine and environmental signals regulating organismal physiology and development. Projects in the Heylandlab include the study of molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying metamorphosis and settlement in zooplankton, the physiological and developmental responses of phytoplankton and zooplankton to environmental change and biotechnology application of microalgae. 

About the Student:

Laksha Jingree is a fourth-year BSc Honours student majoring in Biological Science. Laksha has developed great interest in the public health sector through undergraduate courses in epidemiology. She is particularly interested in the impact that micro-organisms in the environment have on human health. Through the HAB project, she aims to increase her interdisciplinary understanding of how One Health approaches can be applied to problems in the real world.

About the Project:

Spillover of infectious disease from animals to people (zoonoses) or people to animals (reverse zoonoses) can have dramatic impacts. For example, novel infectious diseases like COVID-19 are the product of interactions between humans and people. Additionally, animals are at risk of reverse zoonotic disease that can result in illness or death – especially important for species threatened with extinction. Because of their evolutionary relatedness, non-human primates and humans share many infectious diseases. Thus, in cases where humans and non-human primates interact there is the potential for zoonotic/reverse zoonotic disease transfer. One special circumstance is in zoos where non-human primates, humans, and other animals all interact in a shared space. Understanding the spatial/temporal interactions among non-human primates, humans (e.g., zookeepers), and other animals (e.g., rodents) will help determine the potential risk factors that could lead to disease transfer between them. Although zoos have protocols to reduce the transmission of infectious disease, there are unknown avenues of transmission that still need to be uncovered. Thus, the objective of this research is to determine potential risk factors for zoonotic/reverse zoonotic pathogen transmission among non-human primates and humans at a zoo, map those factors, and provide recommendations to the zoo to reduce the potential risk.

About the Professor:

Travis Steffens is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology his research leverages conservation biogeography, spatial ecology, and One Health approaches to understand how lemurs interact with and respond to human caused disturbance. He is also interested in how humans are impacted by applied conservation measures targeting lemurs and their habitat and he is interested in understanding the risk factors associated with zoonotic/anthroponotic transmission among humans and their domestic animals, wildlife, and their shared environment.

About the Student:

Raquel Archie is an upper year Bachelor of Arts – Honour Degree (BAH) student in anthropology with a minor in ecology. Raquel expresses specific interest in the relationship between human, environmental, and animal health regarding potential risk factors of zoonotic and reverse zoonotic pathogen transmission. She intends to employ a One Health approach to inform about these potential risks and recommend management strategies to reduce them.  

Raquel hopes to make an impact on the future of environmental conservation and protection using the skills she has developed and nurtured through her time at the University of Guelph. 

About the Professor

Dr. Katie Clow is an Assistant Professor in One Health in the Department of Population Medicine at the Ontario Veterinary College. Her research focuses on the ecology and epidemiology of vectors and vector-borne zoonoses, with a specific emphasis on the blacklegged tick and Lyme disease. She also conducts research more broadly on One Health, including pedagogy and community-level applications and is the Graduate Program Coordinator for the Collaborative Specialization in One Health.

She holds both a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree (OVC, 2011) and PhD (Pathobiology, 2017). Dr. Clow has worked in private small animal practice as well as at the national and international level in One Health through internships at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, Department of Food Safety, Zoonoses and Foodborne Disease at the World Health Organization.

About the Student

Stephanie Gerend is entering her fourth year as an undergraduate student at the University of Guelph, completing an Honours Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Science. She is eager to work with Dr. Katie Clow on this One Health project and emphasize the importance of a transdisciplinary approach to solving problems, as solely focusing on one sector does not account for spillover and downstream effects. Espeically considering that the effects of SARS-CoV-2 are not isolated to humans.

During her time at UofG, she has developed a deep interest in the intersection of global development and biological science subject areas. After taking the One Health course, she realized that is a way to combine these two disciplines and has found herself extremely passionate about this intersection.

Beyond academics, Steph loves being involved in community-based work. She is currently the Co-Chair of Relay for Life at UofG, and over the past three years the committee set a Canadian Cancer Society record for largest post-secondary amount raised. She is also involved with Big Brother Big Sisters as a community mentor, facilitating one-on-one weekly meetings with her mentee in an effort to help reduce the societal barriers and adversities they face.

Through the Robert W. Woolner Studentship, Steph hopes to learn more about how the One Health approach can shed light on potential gaps in disease transmission and help build a framework for preventing future zoonotic transmission and spillover. She is looking forward to working with professionals from different sectors to solve this complex issue and learn more about multidisciplinary collaboration.

Previous Recipients

Summer 2020

Dr. Fiona James & Rachel Vella

Project: Comparing canine and human epileptic syndromes

Dr. Travis Steffens & Kiana Gibson

Project: Investigating the potential transmission of intestinal pathogens among people, lemurs, and domestic animals in Madagascar

About the Professor

Dr. Amy Newman is an Associate Professor in the Department of Integrative Biology in the College of Biological Sciences. She is an ecophysiologist who’s training lies at the intersection of physiology, ecology and neuroendocrinology. She uses both field and laboratory techniques to answer questions that integrate ecology and physiology with the goal of understanding how the early life environment shapes stress physiology, behaviour and fitness.

Prior to joining the Department of Integrative Biology as a faculty member in 2012, Dr. Newman obtained a BSc from Queen’s University, a PhD in Neuroscience from the University of British Columbia, and was an NSERC Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Guelph.

About the Student

Hello! My name is Hossam Ehab, and I am spending this summer working with the Newman lab on a project that involves a number of One Health principles. One Health is a research approach/outlook that I am passionate about. The project I will be working on examines the impacts of agricultural stress and landscape restoration on avian diversity in farms across southern Ontario.

I’m entering my fourth year of undergraduate studies at the university of Guelph this fall as a marine and freshwater biology major. In my spare time I enjoy biking, going for a hike, or photographing interesting things that catch my eye.

Through the Robert W. Woolner studentship, I’m looking forward to exploring how One Health principles can be applied to ecological diversity studies and to conservation efforts in a region that is also important for food production.

Previous Recipients

Summer 2020

Dr. Fiona James & Rachel Vella

Project: Comparing canine and human epileptic syndromes

Dr. Travis Steffens & Kiana Gibson

Project: Investigating the potential transmission of intestinal pathogens among people, lemurs, and domestic animals in Madagascar

About the Project:

Fungal diseases greatly impact the world around us, including our environment, food system, and health. Beginning with the food we eat, the application of fungicides to protect cereal crops from devastating fungal diseases can lead to resistance among plant pathogens. Moreover, fungicidal applications can also cause resistance within environmental pathogens, which are transmitted to humans, causing devastating disease. For example, Fusarium head blight (FHB), a globally-impactful fungal disease of cereal crops that leads to a reduction in grain quality and contamination with dangerous mycotoxins, is often averted with the annual application of azoles. Subsequently, such applications increase exposure of environmental microbes, including the human fungal pathogen, Cryptococcus neoformans, to the fungicide and promote antifungal resistance. For C. neoformans, inhalation of spores from the environment can lead to fatal meningitis if left untreated or in the presence of antifungal resistant strains. Using a One Health approach, my research program bridges together environmental, animal, and human health to uncover new prevention and treatment strategies against disease in the grower’s field to reduce fungicide use. Our approach limits the evolution of resistance amongst environmental pathogens, and ensures that our current medical antifungal therapies remain effective. We achieve these goals using state-of-the-art mass spectrometry instrumentation, advanced bioinformatics platforms, an array of biochemical, molecular, microbiological, and immunological techniques, as well as established interdisciplinary collaborations.

About the Professor:

Dr. Jennifer Geddes-McAlister started her appointment as Assistant Professor in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology at the University of Guelph in July 2018. She is an expert in mass spectrometry-based proteomics following a Alexander von Humboldt post-doctoral fellowship at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry (Germany). Her research program embraces a One Health approach to define the relationship between host and pathogen during infection to uncover new strategies for overcoming resistance in both medically- and agriculturally-relevant diseases.

About the Student:

Jiaxi Lu is a third-year BSc student in Crop, Horticulture, and Turfgrass Science (CHATs). Jiaxi is particularly interested in exploring the relationship between environmental, plant, and human health in order to discover new preventative measures and treatment approaches against fungal disease in the grower’s field through a One Health approach.

Jiaxi has experience working with academic institutions (plant pathogens) and non-governmental organizations (breeding and field management) in Canada and China on research and business projects.