Department of Microbiology

Jessica Pyle

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ADDRESS
Office: Hesler 410 1406 Circle Drive Knoxville, TN 37996
Lab: Hesler 414 1406 Circle Drive Knoxville, TN 37996
Phone
Office: 865-974-6234
Lab:

Jessica Pyle

Lecturer

My primary role in Microbiology is teaching and coordinating teaching labs. I teach MICR 210, Allied Health Microbiology, which is predominantly taken by pre-Nursing students. Topics are introductory and include microbial cell structure and function, Central Dogma of molecular biology, virology, genetics, metabolism, immunology, and infectious diseases of body systems. I coordinate lab curriculum, materials, and supervise Teaching Assistants for BIOL 229, General Microbiology Lab, which is an introductory course for majors. Topics include microscopy, microbial growth and physiology, host-microbe and microbe-microbe interactions, symbiosis, metabolism, immunology, and virology. I coordinate labs for MICR 329, which is an advanced microbiology methods course. Students complete a semester-long transformation project, cloning bioluminescence genes found in Aliivibrio fischeri to E. coli, causing the E. coli to glow in the dark.

My research background is in microbial ecology and biogeochemistry. I am fascinated with how microbes interact with the environment, hosts, and other microbes to elicit emergent ecosystem processes such as carbon and nutrient cycling. I used stable isotope probing to understand how microbial enzymatic decomposition of soil organic matter depends on root-mycorrhizal fungal interactions and varies across forest ecotypes. Microbial decomposition is shaped by global changes, such as nitrogen deposition, and I found a threshold of nitrogen inputs that altered microbial communities across a range of long-term experimental sites in the eastern United States. Check out related publications on my ORCiD page: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5387-0662. 

Education

  • PhD in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, University of Tennessee (2016)
  • BS in Biology/BS in Environmental Science (dual major), Eastern Washington University (2010)
  • Post-doctoral Research: University of New Hampshire, Natural Resources and the Environment
  • Post-doctoral Research: University of Tennessee, Ecology & Evolutionary Biology
  • Post-doctoral Research: Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Biosciences Division