Jen Ronholm | Associate Professor
McGill University

Dr. Ronholm obtained her BSc in Microbiology from the University of Waterloo in 2007 and her Doctoral degree in microbiology and immunology from the University of Ottawa in 2013. She completed post-doctoral training at McGill University and at Health Canada. She was hired as an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences in 2017 and promoted to an Associate Professor in 2023. She currently holds a Canada Research Chair in Agricultural Microbiology. Unique microbial communities exist in several locations in the bodies of humans and animals. For example, a cow will have extremely different bacterial communities living in their mouths, than in their rumen, or small intestine, or udder. While the composition of a microbial community of a single site (i.e. the udder) varies only a little between individual animals, these small differences can make a big difference in terms of infection susceptibility. My laboratory works to identify these differences! We are attempting to define what a “healthy” microbiome looks like, and what a microbiome that is susceptible to infection looks like. We attempt to define down to the species level which members of the microbiome are protective against different types of infection so that these bacteria can be investigated as potential probiotics – to prevent these types of infection. Our hope is that if we can fortify the microbiome of humans and animals to resist infection we will be able to reduce our reliance on antibiotic usage in the context of production agriculture.