Catherine J. Paul

My broad research interests are bacterial communities and biofilms in environmental settings. I want to understand the interlocking metabolisms of bacterial communities to allow us to change or control how these bacteria are behaving in industrially-relevant environments. This understanding will allow us to work together with the bacteria to clean up our natural world: to improve and safeguard our drinking water or to degrade chemicals that are contaminating our natural environments. By controlling what growth conditions such as nutrients are available to the microbes, perhaps their interaction with our human-built and urban environments can be steered towards positive outcomes, such as reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. I like to think of this as a prebiotic approach to the management of these essential microbial ecosystem services.

Teaching Responsibilities