Staff

Principal Investigator

Stephen Lindemann

Dr. Stephen Lindemann

Food Science
Associate Professor

Steve Lindemann is the microbiome wrangler and genome guru of the lab. His overarching goals aim to determine how diet influences the gut microbiome and overall host health. He aims to identify whether host health can be treated with dietary solutions. Specifically, molecular ecology techniques, dietary fiber structure determination, and bioinformatic analyses are used to understand the composition and stability of the gut microbiome with various dietary influences.

Staff

Rwivoo Baruah

Dr. Rwivoo Baruah

Food Science
Postdoctoral Fellow
Rwivoo Baruah is a current visiting Fulbright Postdoctoral Fellow in the Lindemann lab. He obtained his PhD from Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Assam, India. His PhD thesis was on the production and purification of linear dextran from Weissella Sps as well as their functional characterization. He worked as Research Associate (CSIR) at the CSIR-Central Food Technological Research Institute (CFTRI) at Mysore, Karnataka, India, for 3 years. There he worked on characterization of capsular exopolysaccharide from B. breve. Currently, Rwivoo plans to investigate the consumption of EPS from cyanobacterial communities by gut microbiota, the enzymes involved and their safety studies.
Dane Deemer

Dane Deemer

Food Science
Computational Biology Project Manager
Dane Deemer is the current project manager of the Lindemann lab, converging on both computational and wet-lab techniques. His focus is currently split between various projects and increasing laboratory efficiency and functionality. Using both existing methods and developing new computational techniques, Dane aims to understand how best to represent and understand the human gut microbiome. With an emphasis on automation and metagenomic analysis simplification, he hopes to reduce the gap between wet-lab biologists and data scientists.
Mariana Guzman

Mariana Guzman

Visiting Scholar

Mariana Guzmán is a visiting scholar in the Diet-Microbiome Interactions Lab and originally joined the team in Spring 2023 through the Undergraduate Research Experience Purdue – Colombia Program (UREP-C). She earned her BS in Agroindustrial Production Engineering and Bioproduction Engineering from La Sabana University, Colombia. She is currently assisting with modeling fructooligosaccharide degradation by microbial communities. She aspires to pursue a master’s degree to delve into the gut microbiome and its connection to nutrition, aiming to enhance her understanding in this field. In her free time, Mariana loves to cook, read and spend time outdoors.

Peter Jackson

Dr. Peter Jackson

Food Science
Postdoctoral Researcher
Peter Jackson is a current postdoctoral research associate in the Lindemann lab. He is a former chef, and since then has obtained a BSc in Human Nutrition from Bournemouth University, UK and both an MSc in Food Science and PhD from the University of Reading, UK. His PhD thesis explored the prebiotic concept – from the effect of the food matrix on inulin-type fructan efficacy right through to inulin-type fructans and 2’fucosyllactose ability to influence mood state. Peter currently works on exploring the differences between individuals in response to inulin supplementation. Along with establishing a pH-controlled in vitro batch culture system to study the effects of dietary substrates on microbial composition. 
Yuxin Wang

Dr. Yuxin Wang

Lead Scientist

Yuxin Wang is a current lead scientist and lab manager of the Lindemann lab. She obtained her Ph.D. degree from the Institutes for Nutritional Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, focusing on the role and mechanisms of protein post-translational modification in the canonical NF-κB signaling pathway. She did her post-doc training at UMASS-Amherst and UC-DAVIS. She focused on the effect and mechanisms of the eicosanoid signaling pathway and the metabolites in colon permeability, and colon diseases. She worked as an Assistant Project Scientist for 1 year and 4 months. There she worked on establishing the cellular system to determine the mechanism of PROTAC small-molecule degraders. Currently, Yuxin plans to set up the in vitro cellular system to determine the effect and mechanisms of microbiome metabolites and pathogens that affect the colon monolayer and the immune system.

Tianming Yao

Dr. Tianming Yao

Food Science
Postdoctoral Researcher
Tianming Yao is a PhD candidate working jointly in the Lindemann Lab and the Hamaker Lab.  He joined Dr. Srinivas Janaswamy’s group in August 2015 as a Master’s student with support from China Scholarship Council.  He transferred to Dr. Hamaker’s lab in August 2016.  In the Lindemann Lab, Tianming is focusing on dietary fibers, with a specific focus on sorghum arabinoxylans, and how they modulate the gut microbiome.

Graduate Students

Sajal Bhattarai

Sajal Bhattarai

Sajal completed his bachelor’s degree in food technology from Central Campus of Technology, Tribhuvan University, Nepal and his Masters in Biological Sciences: Food Science Specialization from South Dakota State University. His undergraduate thesis was focused on designing and construction of a pilot scale plant prototype to produce water-based edible wood smoke flavors free of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs). His master’s program research was focused on understanding the polysaccharide chemistry (predominantly cellulose) and utilize the underutilized agricultural biomass to prepare environment friendly, strong, UV blocking, antioxidant and biodegradable ligno-cellulosic films to be potentially used for food packaging applications.

His research is currently focused on understanding the effects of sorghum arabinoxylans and cyanobacterial exopolysaccharides on the cooperative and competitive behavior of gut microbial community. One of his future plans is to pursue research on understanding how microbial ecology can be manipulated through diet to minimize the effects of environmental toxins in food.

Miguel Gonzales

Miguel Alvarez Gonzales

Food Science
PhD Student

Miguel A. Alvarez Gonzales is a graduate student in the Lindemann lab, joining the team in 2020.  Prior to starting his PhD, Miguel obtained his BS degree in Food Science and Technology from Zamorano University, Honduras, trained for a year in molecular biology techniques and bioinformatics, and completed his MSc in Food Science with an emphasis on carbohydrate chemistry.  Now, in the Lindemann lab, he uses the structure and function of carbohydrates, fecal fermentations, and bioinformatics to characterize wheat bran interactions with the gut microbiome.

Marcelo Guerrero

Marcelo Guerrero

Food Science
MS Student

Marcelo Guerrero is a graduate student in the Diet-Microbiome Interactions lab. His primary focus is on comprehending and applying classical genetic techniques to unravel unknown biological mechanisms. Within the Lindemann Lab, his goals revolve around gaining insights into the genetic mechanisms that govern the degradation of dietary fibers by various gut bacteria. Previously, he contributed to research involving the determination of the composition of distinct food matrices at Zamorano University. Furthermore, Marcelo has experience in conducting quantitative analyses for metabolite determination in fermentation protocols at Purdue University.

Victoria Gutierrez

Victoria Gutierrez

Food Science
MS Student
Victoria Gutierrez is a master’s student studying human diet-microbiome interactions by applying many microbial, molecular, and genetic techniques. She graduated with her Bachelor’s from Zamorano Agricultural School in Food Science and technology and joined the Lindemann lab in early 2023 as a research scholar. In the Lindemann lab, she is researching the effects of division of labor of a synthetic gut microbial community in Sorghum arabinoxylan degradation. She wishes to keeps researching gut health after obtaining her master’s degree. In addition to her research, she enjoys reading, spending time outdoors, running and playing basketball.
Anurag Pujari

Anurag Pujari

Food Science
PhD Student

Anurag is a PhD student in the lab. He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in microbiology from the University of Pune, India. For his PhD, he is studying different traits (genomics and proteomics) of gut microbiota that enable the microorganisms to metabolize complex carbohydrates which are part of the diet and the effect that carbohydrate structure has on this outcome. He is interested in understanding the chronological action of enzymes and genes working towards hydrolyzing complex carbohydrates. Anurag loves spending time outdoors and pursuing his hobby of wildlife photography.

Adam Quinn

Adam Quinn

Food Science
PhD Student

Adam Quinn joined the lab in 2020 after receiving his BS and MS in Food Science from Brigham Young University. He is currently working to understand the impacts of different wheat varieties on gut microbiomes and the role of phages in sourdough microbiomes. His love for food, agriculture, and health stems from being raised on a wheat farm in Montana and starting a whole grain snack company. He also has a passion for teaching and spends some of his time mentoring in an undergraduate research course at Purdue.

Rajsri Raghunath

Rajsri Raghunath

Food Science
PhD Student

Rajsri obtained her Bachelor’s degree in Food Science from Michigan State University. Her undergraduate research was focused on characterizing the allergens in ancient (genotype DD) wheat (specifically, Aegilops tauschii) and durum (genotype AABB) wheat using SDS-PAGE and Western Blotting. She also worked with mouse models on food allergy and immunology-focused research to understand how gluten allergy develops in transdermally sensitized BALB/c mice.

In the Lindemann lab, she is currently investigating how arabinoxylans originating from commercially-available cereal grains influence anaerobic fermentation by intestinal bacteria, and the role played by modern cereal grain consumption habits in modulating human gut microbiota composition. She eventually hopes to use her graduate training to explore the human gut microbiome’s relationship with a variety of factors, ex. dietary habits, gender, etc.

In addition to her research, Rajsri also pursues her artistic and literary interests in painting, sketching and reading.

Undergraduate Students

Kierra Brock

Kierra Brock

Kierra Brock is an undergraduate student studying microbiology and psychology, and she plans to go to medical school after completing her undergraduate degree. She currently works as a lab research assistant and helps with various projects regarding gut microbiome interactions.

Carina Crisan

Carina Crisan

Neurobiology and Physiology
Lab Assistant

Carina is a junior majoring in Neurobiology & Physiology and Philosophy. She is currently helping with various projects. After graduation, she plans to apply to medical school.

YOUSSEF ERRIHANI

YOUSSEF ERRIHANI

Lab Assistant

Youssef is a junior majoring in Biomedical Health Science with a concentration in Pre-Medicine.  He is currently helping other researchers in the lab with various projects. After graduating, he plans to go to medical school and would like to obtain an MD-PhD.  Youssef is a certified personal trainer who enjoys playing soccer and traveling.

MADDY RANSFORD

MADDY RANSFORD

Lab Assistant

Maddie is an undergraduate research assistant in the Lindemann lab.

Alumni

 

McKEnna Stahl - BS (2022-2023)

McKenna was an undergraduate research assistant and received her BS in Health and Kinesiology in 2023. She is pursing a graduate degree from Rush University in Chicago.

Wenxin (Jenny) Yin - BS (2022-2023)

Jenny was an undergraduate research assistant and received her BS in Food Science in 2023. She is pursuing a graduate degree from the University of Michigan.

Miranda Carter - BS (2020-2022)

Miranda graduated with a BS in Microbiology and Anthropology and is pursing a PhD at the University of Florida. 

Isabell Mahin (2021-2022)

Pursuing a Food Science Bachelor's at Purdue University.

Sophie Pecher - Bs (2021-2022)

Sophie recieved her BS in Biological and Cellular Engineering at Purdue University in 2022. She is now a Fermentations Operations Engineer at Gingko Bioworks, Inc.

Ishani Roychowdhury (2022)

Ishani received a BS in Food Science in 2023.

Connor Emsley - BS (2020-2021)

Connor majored in Pharmaceutical Science and graduated in 2022.

Laura libera - BS (2018-2021)

Laura graduate with her Bachelor's in Biological Engineering, minoring in Fermentation Science.

Renee Oles - BS (2020-2021)

Renee received a BS in Biology and is currently pursing a PhD in Biomedical Sciences at UC San Diego

Tess Snyder - BS (2021)

Tess received her BS in Biochemistry in 2022 and is now pursing a Master's Degree at Oregon State University.

Vikas SRinivasa - BS (2020-2021)

Vika was an undergraduate research assistant and received his BS in Neurobiology and Physiology in 2022.

Andrea Whittekind - BS (2020-2021)

Andrea received her BS in Health & Disease in 2022.

Tianming Yao - Phd (2017-2021)

Tianming graduated with his Master’s and PhD in Food Science in 2017 and 2021, respectively.  He is now working as a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Lindemann Lab.

Arianna Romero - MS (2018-2020)

Arianna graduated with her Master’s degree in Food Science in 2021.  She is now working at Kellogg’s. 

Riya Thakkarr - MS (2017-2019)

Riya graduated with her Master’s degree in Food Science in 2020.  She is now working at January.ai.