A University of Windsor adjunct professor from the Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research is the recipient of the American Society for Microbiology’s 2019 Award for Early Career Environmental Research.

Subba Rao Chaganti will receive his award at the society’s Microbe meeting in San Francisco, California, in June 2019.

“In the Faculty of Science, we’re really proud of the prestigious award that Dr. Chaganti has received,” said Dan Mennill, associate dean, graduate studies and research. “This reflects very positively on both GLIER and the University of Windsor.”

The ASM Award for Early Career Research recognizes an early career investigator with distinguished research achievements that have improved understanding of microbes in the environment. This includes all microbes found in aquatic, terrestrial, and atmospheric settings.

“It is a worldwide, international society of microbiologists. I am truly honoured and grateful to be an award winner in the society,” says Chaganti.

He notes that the institute is the perfect home for his work: “We have beautiful beaches in the Great Lakes, but once they’re contaminated they can’t really be used.”

Chaganti’s research is in part focused on how to quickly identify microbial contamination, and also how the local food chains are affected by contamination. The overall goal is to identify how to correct these negative impacts on the ecosystem.

“My research also has a lot of collaboration from the USA, India, and China,” says Chaganti. “It is important that this research has been recognized and nominated for this award as we are still just scratching the surface — there is still much left to do.”

—article and photo by Darko Milenkovic