Clemson’s microbiologists study everything from ecosystems, microbiomes and microbial ecology to infectious disease, host-pathogen interactions, antibiotic resistance, bioinformatics and applied genomics.
Current projects include studies on metagenomics and metatranscriptomics coupled to environmental parameters to understand the role of microbes and the microbiome in our natural and anthropogenic environments. We have projects using new genetic and imaging methods to determine and define how our immune system responds to fungal pathogens. Come to Clemson to study how a pathogen hijacks hosts to its benefit for its diet, replication and invasions, or how a healthy microbiome can reduce the occurrence of specific diseases. Microbiology at Clemson encompasses research that investigates areas including food security and disease, genomics and bioinformatics, the microbiome, host-pathogen interactions, and disease.
Because we study microscopic living organisms such as bacteria, archaea, fungi, parasites and viruses, specialized facilities are needed and found within our NIH-supported Eukaryotic Pathogens Innovation Center, Clemson Light Imaging Facility, Electron Microscopy Facility, Multi-User Analytical Laboratory, Palmetto Computing Cluster, and Clemson University’s Genomics and Bioinformatics Facility.
Faculty have received grant funding from the NIH, NSF, USDA, DOE, DOD and industry partners. Clemson offers B.A., B.S, M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in microbiology. Our mission is to train new microbiologists and address pertinent basic and applied microbiological questions in order to better protect and understand our environment and public health. Our graduates work in diverse fields including academia, biotechnology, food science, the pharmaceutical industry, consulting and government.
Faculty with an asterisk after their name are currently accepting graduate students in the rotation program.
Barbara Campbell*
Professor
My lab focuses on the ecology of microbes in the environment: who is there, what they are doing and how they interact with others.
Min Cao
Associate Professor
Microbial genetics, noninvasive detection and measurement of single bacterial cells using radio frequency.
Zhicheng Dou*
Associate Professor
Molecular parasitology of protozoan pathogens in biomedicine and poultry science.
Kevin Finneran
Professor
School of CE & EEES
Xiuping Jiang
Professor
Food, Nutrition & Package Sci
Konstantin Kornev*
Professor
Materials Science&Engineering
We study arthropod biomechanics to reveal the material features enabling arthropods to survive in diverse environment.
Antonino Malacrino*
Adjunct Professor
Incoming Asst. Professor (Jan. 2025). Microbiomes, host-microbiome ecology and evolution, hologenomics, bioinformatics.
Charles Rice
Professor
Immunotoxicology, comparative marine immunobiology, cancer immunology.
Vincent Richards
Associate Professor
The current emphasis of my laboratory is the association between microbiomes and human health.
Emily E Rosowski*
Assistant Professor
Innate immune responses to pathogens and host-pathogen interactions in a larval zebrafish host model.
Anna Seekatz
Assistant Professor
Interactions between infectious diseases and the gut microbiota.
Lesly Temesvari
Alumni Professor/Assoc Chair
Virulence mechanisms of the pathogenic amoebae, Entamoeba histolytica and Acanthamoeba castellanii; drug discovery and drug re-purposing.
Matt Turnbull
Associate Professor
Insect virology. Currently ecology, infection routes, and replication of the sterilizing nudivirus HzNV-2.
Jeremy Tzeng
Professor
Antimicrobial drug resistance, antibiotic alternatives, magnetically mediated energy delivery, biosensor, adhesin-specific nanoparticles.
Kristi Whitehead
Principal Lecturer
The impact of well-conserved functions in gastrointestinal bacteria on bacterial colonization and human health and disease.
