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Towson professor’s work to focus on Bay microbes
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BALTIMORE (Map, News) - A Towson University professor’s scholarly research could help promote the health of the Chesapeake Bay.
“The kind of work she is doing has a real impact on the environment in Maryland and the microbial ecology,” said Gerald W. Intemann, dean of the university’s College of Biological and Physical Sciences.
“It’s really important to the economy. This research is not abstract, ivory tower stuff. It affects the lives of people in Maryland.”
Intemann was referring to the future work of Joy Watts, an assistant professor of biology at Towson since 2004, who was selected as the first recipient of the Jess and Mildred Fisher Endowed Chair in the Biological and Physical Sciences.
She’s an expert in the use of molecular tools, examining the ecology and distribution of microbial communities associated with PCB dechlorination.
Her research, in collaboration with her undergraduate students, will focus on the Chesapeake Bay.
Watts, who has a doctorate in environmental microbiology from England’s University of Warwick, is expected to study microbes that can’t survive in oxygen in Towson University’s lab.
Watts grew up in Liverpool, a city not unlike Baltimore, which has struggled with carcinogenic mercury and PCB contamination in its bay.
“I was always interested in microbes, since an internship in a hospital when I was 15 and I looked at bacterial swabs,” she said.
“I saw the start of an anti-resistant bacteria that caused three deaths so quickly, but I didn’t want to go into medicine or business, which left teaching and research.”
Eleven professors applied for the Fisher Chair, including two faculty members who received $5,000 meritorious recognition awards: Harald Beck, also in biological sciences, and Jennifer Scott, in physics, astronomy and geosciences. Watts begins the three-year appointment Wednesday.
AT A GLANCE
The $1 million Jess and Mildred Fisher Endowed Chair in the Biological and Physical Sciences is part of a $10.2 million gift from the Robert M. Fisher Foundation. Joy Watts will receive $20,000 for each of the next three years. The award may be used for a summer faculty stipend, professional travel, research equipment, undergraduate student support and a three-hour courseload reduction per annum in her teaching at Towson University. The chair was established in June 2005 to help foster and retain junior faculty, said Gerald W. Intemann, the university’s dean of the college of biological and physical sciences.
rcassie@baltimoreexaminer.com
