Jenny C. Fisher, Ph.D.
Phone: (414) 382-1747
Fax: (414) 382-1705
Lab Web Site: http://home.freshwater.uwm.edu/mclellanlab
School of Freshwater Sciences
Great Lakes WATER Institute
600 E. Greenfield Ave.
Milwaukee, WI 53204
Education and Experience
- Postdoctoral Fellow, Desert Research Institute (2008-2013)
- Ph.D., Marine Science, University of Georgia (2007)
- Environmental Engineer, USEPA, Washington, DC (1998-2000)
- B.S.E., Civil and Environmental Engineering, Duke University (1998)
Clean water has long been a scarce commodity in underdeveloped countries, but is now growing increasingly limited in industrialized nations as well. The biological contamination of freshwater sources is likely to become even more severe with changes in climate. My research broadly focuses on the microbial ecology and biogeochemistry of impacted and threatened aquatic ecosystems. My background is in field sampling and wet lab studies, but these days I’m mainly experimenting with R and Python.
My current research focuses on microbial source tracking and the impacts of urban stormwater and sewage on Lake Michigan. I use next generation DNA sequencing to identify host-specific gut bacteria from human and animal sources in order to develop alternative indicators of sewage and non-point source runoff pollution.
I am also interested in sewer systems as incubators for emerging pathogens like Acinetobacter and Arcobacter spp. These organisms are present extremely low abundance in the human gut, but can account for >10% sewage populations. Are these populations inoculated from human feces? How do they thrive? What are the implications for these organisms during CSOs (combined sewer overflows)? In collaboration with the Figueras lab (Universitat Rovira i Vigili, Reus, Spain), I analyze populations of the organisms from sewage systems from around the US (and the world) and look for patterns in their occurrence, abundance, and potential virulence. [Come see my presentation at the Ocean Sciences Meeting in Honolulu, HI in Feb 2014!]
Blautia (a genus in the order Clostridiales, family Lachnospiraceae) appears to be a consistent tracer for human fecal inputs in sewage systems and in contaminated freshwater systems. Blautia also has both shared and host-specific representatives in many animals as well. Comparative analysis of Blautia genomes may reveal genetic clues to the host specificity or cosmopolitan nature of different strains.