Gabby is a second-year Ph.D. student and is an Illinois native! She earned her B.S. in Food Science with a minor in Microbiology from Penn State University in 2020, where she also worked in a food microbiology laboratory for 2 academic years. She worked for two years as a Food Safety Scientist before starting graduate school in Summer 2022.

She previously worked on studying changes in the microbial quality of milk contaminated with a fast-growing spoilage bacterium in a simulated, non-temperature-controlled share table in K-12 school cafeterias. This work helped identify the impact that the addition of share tables would have on spoilage bacteria growth compared to the impact during normal refrigeration, and whether spoilage of milk was likely.  

Currently, she is working on developing a process model for Listeria monocytogenes and Shiga toxin-producing E. coli in leafy greens.The targeted outcome of this model is to understand risk of a product recall, and to identify the point in the supply chain where stakeholders can invest resources to reduce this risk.

Her hobbies include: training for and running marathons, trying new recipes, yoga, and taking long walks with her dog, Bella.