News & Updates from the Smyth Lab

Fall 2023 - Summer 2024

  • Dr. Smyth and POOP Troop are headed to ASM Microbe 2023

  • Dr. Smyth is headed to SICB 2024

Fall 2022 - Summer 2023

  • Dr Smyth and POOP Troop are headed to ASM Microbe 2023

  • Dr. Smyth is headed to BIOME

  • Dr. Smyth is headed to POGIL

Fall 2021 - Summer 2022

2020-21

  • The Smyth Lab has moved to Texas A&M San Antonio!

2019-20

  • Undergraduate student Emma Letcher and Dr. Smyth’s article “Hitchhikers in Honey: An investigation of the inhibitory mechanisms of bacteria found in honey” was published in the Journal of Student Research in December of 2019.

  • The Smyth Lab is going to ASM Microbe 2020! Molly, Wes, Annabelle and Dr. Smyth are all presenting.

  • Smyth Lab has a new paper out “The Sustainability Challenges Facing Research and Teaching Laboratories When Going Green”. Marcus Banks and Molly Metz are co-authors.

  • Dr. Smyth presented at the 11th Annual ePortfolio forum in Washington DC with Dr. Theresa Conefrey

  • Undergrad students Molly Metz, Wes Thomason, Simon Chen, Leah Hughes and high school student Kristoff Misquitta presented posters at MACUB at Monmouth University. 

  • Simon Chen and Kristoff Misquitta won first place and Leah Hughes took home third place in the Microbiology & Immunology category at MACUB. 

  • Annabelle Adams-Beyea and Wes Thomason received the Eugene Lang Opportunity Award to fund their research in the Spring semester. 

  • Wes Thomason presented his work "Effects of Extreme Weather Patterns on the Soil Microbiome in New York City" at the ABRCMS conference in Anaheim, CA. 

  • Dr. Smyth presented at the What Can You Be With a PhD event at NYU. 

  • Undergrad student Ethyn Maki received the Kalil award to fund his research on Pseudomonas this Spring 

  • Kristoff Misquitta, Rita Chen and Michaelangelo Pagan won outstanding poster at the Urban Barcode Research Program Symposium

  • Dr. Smyth is elected a PULSE Fellow

  • Dr. Smyth was chosen as a PALM Mentor to Carlos Goller

  • Dr. Smyth joined the editorial board of Science Education and Civic Engagement: An International Journal

2018-19

  • It’s a new semester at the New School. This semester Dr. Smyth is teaching “Microbial Ecologies” and “How the Toilet Changed the World”. She’s teaching “Advanced Microbiology Research” for the first time and she’s a guest instructor for “Honeybee Colonies“.

  • Dr. Smyth is delighted to serve as a PALM mentor for Carlos Goller. We’re going to be working together to develop active learning activities for upper level bioinformatics courses.

  • Summer Undergraduate Research Experiences at the New School has concluded. See the blog for stories from the interns!

  • Dr. Smyth and Theresa presented a workshop on ePortfolios at the Annual Meeting of the Association for Authentic, Experiential and Evidence Based Learning

  • Wes has applied for a student travel award to attend ABRCMS this year! Fingers and toes crossed

  • Marcus has been awarded a New School Travel Award for his project “Closing the Plastic Waste Stream in Science Laboratories”. I’m excited to be his mentor.

  • Emma has been awarded a Eugene Lang Opportunity Award to work with me on our new honey and bee project.

  • Dr. Smyth is back from giving three workshops at the SENCER Summer Institute. Many new friends made and new collaborations formed.

  • Dr. Smyth presented a poster on SENCER at the Gordon Research Conference for Undergraduate Education in Biology.

  • Natalie and Janelly presented their exciting projects at MICROBE 2019 in San Francisco.

  • Dr. Smyth participated in the Avida-Ed workshop in Austen, Texas. Excited to plan modules for my new course in Spring “Evolution, Mutation and Computation”

  • Team URBP wins outstanding poster at the Urban Barcode Research Project Symposium.

  • Marcus Banks has been accepted to present a poster at a conference in Latvia (I had to look it up on the map ;))

  • Team URBP had a great time collecting data on student’s perceptions about Cigarettes and JUUL pods during Earth week.

  • Three new students have joined the lab. Lauren, Sidney and Emma, Welcome!!

  • Natalie’s abstract has been chosen for a rapid fire talk at Microbe!!

  • Dr. Smyth is going to be on the radio with Randy Cohen and Person, Place, Thing. Get tickets here

  • We’ve received funding from the Eugene Lang Faculty Opportunity Award

  • Our new paper is online. Interdisciplinary collaborations can work when faculty are able to work together!

  • Smyth lab participated in the World Science Festival with Tiny Earth

  • Smyth lab has joined Tiny Earth

  • Dr. Smyth is headed off to the Gordon Research Conference for Undergraduate Biology Education

  • Janelly and Natalie have been accepted to Microbe 2019!!

  • Our blog article on lab sustainability is out

  • Smyth lab made a contribution to an article on Medium

  • Smyth Lab has been awarded a small grant from the Tishman Center of the New School

  • Smyth Lab has moved to the New School

  • Undergraduate researcher Janelly Eralte has been accepted to present at this year’s SACNAS. This will be her first conference!

  • Dr. Smyth had a great time presenting at this year’s SSI2018

  • Dr. Smyth had a lovely time at my first QUBES meeting

  • Dr Smyth had fun, learning about assessments at the regional PKAL meeting

2017-18

  • Undergraduate researcher Natalie Vegas has been accepted to present at this years’ Microbe. This is her second acceptance!

  • Dr. Smyth had a great time presenting at the New School

  • Our CURE paper is out in the SENCER journal

2016-17

  • Undergraduate researcher Natalie Vegas received a Capstone award to attend this years’ MICROBE

  • Undergraduate researcher Bien Porconi received an honorary mention for her poster presentation at this years CSTEP meeting

  • Undergraduate researcher Natalia Tumidajski has been awarded a SACNAS travel scholarship to attend the SACNAS meeting in October

  • Undergraduate researcher Natalia Tumidajski has been accepted to the SURP Program at Albert Einstein this Summer

  • Undergraduate researchers Natalia Tumidajski, Bien Porconi, Dominick Mancini and Natalie Vegas have been accepted to present at this years ABRCMS in Tampa, Fl. Natalie will be giving an oral presentation!

2015-16

 

  • Dr. Smyth has been invited to be a speaker at this years “What you can be with a PhD”. I’m chuffed

  • We presented a poster at this years’ Applied and Environmental Microbiology Gordon conference

  • Fabiola presented her work on using next-generation sequencing to assess water quality at the American Society for Microbiology Annual General Meeting in New Orleans

  • Minni was awarded a Capstone award to attend and present at the American Society for Microbiology Annual General Meeting in New Orleans

  • We presented a poster at Microbes in the City: Mapping the Urban Genome at the NYAS

  • We’ve been accepted to be a site for CUNY Service Corps and the READ project!

  • Seven students of the lab took place in the Emerging Scholars this semester. Rimsha Azhar took second place in the STEM category in the Emerging Scholars Poster competition for her work characterizing the staphylococci from the environment. Faizan Malik took first place in the non-STEM category for his work describing how to motivate students in microbiology. Congrats lads!

  • Dr Smyth gave a presentation - Assessing Reading: The READ Initiative. Oral presentation for “Closing the Loop on assessment of General Education” for the CUNY Assessment Council seminar

  • Dr. Smyth is now the program coordinator for Biomedical Informatics at NYCCT

  • Dr. Smyth is invited to join CCRP DOE project aimed at improving student reading skills

  • Dr. Smyth is invited Teaching Panel presentation at NYU Langone Medical Center

  • Grant submitted to NIH mid-blizzard – Fingers crossed for us all

  • Minni, Kenny, and Fabiola have submitted abstracts to the annual ASM meeting

  • Dr. Smyth is off to China

  • Our lab was featured on the college website

  • Article published on healthybuilding.net on antimicrobials in building products

  • Visited the NY Genome Center with the BIB club

  • Dr. Smyth gave a seminar at Queens College “Insights into the adaptability of the Staphylococci”

  • Dr. Smyth gave a seminar at New York Medical College “Lessons learned from Bacterial Networks: How to land and keep that academic job”

  • New Paper online “Cytotoxic virulence predicts mortality in nosocomial pneumonia due to methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus“

  • Undergraduate researcher Fabiola Fontaine has been accepted to the ABRCMS and she also received an award to attend!

  • Dr Smyth attended the Sencer Summer Institute – was absolutely brilliant

  • Presented at the UnderGround Zero event in the city