De’Anthony Morris

Human Nutrition & Foods

Advisor: Jacek Jaczynski, Food Science

Featured Researcher: De'Anthony Morris

What I like most about doing research is seeing the results from our experiments. It’s satisfying seeing the results of 8+ hours doing lab work.

1. Briefly describe your research project and its importance. (Try to write this in a way that people outside of your field will be able to understand).

My research project is dedicated to detecting volatile organic compounds (VOCs) of bacteria. Specifically, E. coli and Salmonella Enteritidis. We want to fingerprint these VOCs so food companies can prevent pathogenic microbes from causing foodborne illnesses and potentially crippling food producers.

2. How did you first get involved with research?

I first got involved with research through the RAP Program by being placed as a mentee under my mentor, Jacek Jaczynski at the beginning of the year and continued working with him throughout the summer.

3. What does a day of researching look like for you (tools/methods/setting/etc.)?

A day of research could include plating bacterial dilutions of Salmonella or E.coli for our growth studies, researching scientific articles related to our project to improve our methods or enhance our understanding of our project, analyzing compounds ran on the GC-MS or making media plates for future growth studies.

4. What surprised you about doing research?

What surprised me the most was how often setbacks can occur. For example, our group originally had a project to pasteurize eggs using high pressure. However, the eggs couldn’t withstand the pressure and we had to discard that project and figure out another one to put our efforts into. Luckily, we were researching VOCs during that time as well.

5. What’s a challenge that you’ve had in your research experience and how did you overcome it?

A challenge that I’ve experienced during my research experience is being forced to abandon a research project. I’ve overcome that by partnering with my GA to plan out a new study from scratch.

6. What do you like most about doing research?