Jiyoung Lee, PhD

Professor of Environmental Health Sciences, The Ohio State University

Professor of Food Science & Technology, The Ohio State University

Director, Ecology, Epidemiology, and Population Health Program in the OSU Infectious Diseases Institute

PhD in Environmental Health Sciences, University of Michigan, USA|| MS in Microbiology, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea

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Dr. Jiyoung Lee directs her Environmental Microbiology and One Health Lab (EMOHL) which has focused primarily on a One Health & One Water  paradigm for solving pathogen, antibiotic resistance, harmful cyanobacteria (blue-green) algae bloom problems. Current foci in her laboratory and field studies relate to research on pathogens and microbe-derived metabolites (cyanotoxins) in environmental matrices that leads to direct human exposures and subsequent linkage to health risks. Her laboratory has a focus on microbial transmission dynamics, emerging exposure pathways, interactions within microbial community and with hosts in multi-temporal and spatial scales. Her interdisciplinary laboratory uses microbial source tracking, metagenomics, epidemiology, and geospatial tools for addressing these major global environmental and public health challenges.

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Areas of research expertise include the folllowing:

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• Heath risks from cyanotoxin exposure (liver disease, cancer, neurodegenerative diseases)

• Impact of environmental exposure on microbiome & resistome

• Cyanobacteria, cyanophage and toxin ecology

• Water-food-climate nexus: Ecology of emerging infectious diseases

• Sustainable intervention of pathogen and antimicrobial resistance spread

• Wastewater-based epidemiology of COVID-19 and possible application for emerging pathogens

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Dr. Lee has led to the development of well over 100 research products in the last decade spanning topics related to a number of One Health topics, including but not limited to: water quality and health in Cameroon and Ethiopia, urban watersheds, agricultural waters, food contamination, antibiotic resistance, and cyanotoxin-related carcinogenesis.

 

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