Bacterial Isolation & Microscopy→

Jessica recovered twenty-four bacterial isolates from poultry feed she had sampled herself. Each was cultured on nutrient agar, blood agar, MacConkey agar and Salmonella-Shigella agar, then identified through biochemical reactions. That combination separates organisms by what they can and cannot grow on. Microbial enumeration and identification still appears in her technical skills list, five years after the project that taught it. The microscopy that went with it was her first imaging work. It runs directly into the immunofluorescence staining and high-content single-cell image analysis she does at G.E.R.N. now, at a different scale and with the same discipline about what counts as a clean field. She was Course, Programme and Departmental Representative across the degree, and Faculty Representative for Natural Sciences and Environmental Studies in her final year. Bench work and being the person others came to were already happening at the same time.