Teresa McDonald and Ammara Aqeel Defend Their Dissertations

Last week, two graduate students at the David Lab, Teresa McDonald and Ammara Aqeel, defended their dissertations, marking the successful completion of their doctorate degrees at Duke University’s Department of Molecular Genetics & Microbiology. The David Lab celebrated these milestone achievements with a celebration, including a homemade “foodie” cake.

Teresa joined the lab in 2019, with a focus on the complex relationship between weaning diets and the nascent microbiome. Her dissertation, “Plant Dietary Diversity Promotes Early-Life Microbiome Maturation,” contributes to a growing body of research around diet and infant health.

A member of the lab since 2021, Ammara studies how diets change in response to food availability. In her dissertation, “Dietary Genomics as a Complementary Tool in Childhood Malnutrition Intervention,” she uses FoodSeq as a tool to validate participants’ diets and illustrate the impact of food-provisioning initiatives. (Read more)

The same week, second-year PhD student Jacob Hiatt passed his preliminary exams. His research investigates what happens to food DNA as it’s digested, namely whether certain medications affect this process and how gut microbes utilize food DNA.

All in all, the lab had a lot to celebrate. Congrats to Teresa, Ammara, and Jacob!