Michelle received her B.S. in Chemistry from the Georgia Institute of Technology. As a graduate student in Eric Skaar's laboratory at Vanderbilt University, her thesis focused on the role of heme degradation in Staphylococcus aureus. During her post-doctoral fellowship in Dan Portnoy's laboratory at UC Berkeley she studied the intricacies of virulence gene regulation in the intracellular pathogen Listeria monocytogenes. The Reniere Lab at UW is exploring the fundamentals of how bacterial pathogens regulate virulence genes in response to host signals. Using a combination of molecular genetics, biochemistry, microscopy, bioinformatics, and infection models, we seek to gain a deeper understanding of the stressors that are encountered by bacteria during pathogenesis and the regulatory pathways that are activated. See our website for more information: ReniereLab.com