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

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.
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.
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 thesiswas on the production and purification of linear dextran from Weissella Sps aswell 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.

Graduate Students

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.

Monique Felix

Monique Felix

Food Science
PhD Student

Monique Felix joined the Lindemann lab in 2020 as a PhD student in Food Science.  Before arriving to Purdue, Monique completed her Master’s degree in Agricultural Relations at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff.  In the Lindemann lab, she studies oligosaccharide competition in enteropathogenesis.  Aiming to identify mechanisms to prevent infection by supporting growth of the native microflora, Monique uses fecal fermentations and qPCR analyses. 

Mai Nguyen

Mai Nguyen

Food Science
MS Student

Mai Nguyen is a graduate student in the Lindemann Lab working towards her MS in Food Science.  Mai received her BS in Microbiology and Food Safety in May 2020 from the University of Arizona.  Before coming to Purdue, she worked on various projects, including antibiotic prevalence in alternative water sources, efficacy of eco-friendly cleaners in reducing foodborne pathogens on household surfaces, and isolating Cyclospora cayetanensis oocysts from influent and effluent water.  In the Lindemann Lab, she is researching the effects of simple and complex resistant dextrins on consortial evolution of the gut microbiome.

Anurag Pujari

Anurag Pujari

Food Science
PhD Student

Anurag joined the Lindemann lab as a PhD student in 2021.  Before joining the lab, he received his master’s in Microbiology from India.  In the Lindemann lab, Anurag spends his time working on the development of probes to identify which enzymes within specific organisms are responsible for uptake and metabolism of various types of inulin. 

Adam Quinn

Adam Quinn

Food Science
PhD Student

Adam Quinn is a PhD student joined the Lindemann Lab in 2020 after finishing his BS and MS degrees in Food Science at Brigham Young University.  His research focuses on investigating differences in wheat varieties and their impact on human gut microbiomes.  Supported by the USDA and ARGE diversity fellowships, Adam uses analytical carbohydrate chemistry, in vitro fermentation, and 16S rRNA sequencing to identify drivers of microbial populations. 

Jacob Thompson

Jacob Thompson

Nutrition
MS Student

Jacob Thompson is a PhD student in the Interdepartmental Nutrition Program that started in Fall 2020. He obtained his Bachelor’s Degree in Materials Science and Engineering from Michigan Technological University in Spring 2019.  Soon after graduating, he discovered a passion for nutrition and decided to pursue this in graduate school.  In the Lindemann Lab, Jacob is focusing on developing a co-culture system between intestinal cells and gut microbes.  The goal is to further understand how carbohydrate structure influences gut microbiome ecology.

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 modelson food allergy and immunology-focused research to understand how gluten allergy develops in transdermally sensitized BALB/cJ mice.In the Lindemann lab, she is currently investigating how different dietary fiber structures in different 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 humangut 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.

UNDERGRAD STUDENT LAB ASSISTANTS

KIERRA BROCK

KIERRA BROCK

Lab Assistant
MADDY RANSFORD

MADDY RANSFORD

Lab Assistant
MCKENNA STAHL

MCKENNA STAHL

Lab Assistant
WENXIN (JENNY) YIN

WENXIN (JENNY) YIN

Lab Assistant
YOUSSEF ERRIHANI

YOUSSEF ERRIHANI

Lab Assistant

Intern

Aashika Parekh

Aashika Parekh

Polytechnic Institute
UX Developer, Science Communication

Alumni

Tianming Yao - Phd (2017-2021)

Tianming graduated with his Master’s and PhD in Food Science in 2017 and 2021 respectively.  Heis now working as a Postdoctoral Research 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. 

Connor Emsley - BS (2020-2021)

Connor majored in Pharmaceutical Science and graduated in 2022.

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.

Tess Snyder - BS (2021)

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

Andrea Whittekind - BS (2020-2021)

Andrea received her BS in Health & Disease in 2022.

Riya Thakkarr - MS (2017-2019)

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

Miranda Carter - BS (2020-2022)

Miranda graduated with her Bachelor's in 

Laura Libera - BS (2018-2021)

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

Renee Oles - BS (2020-2021)

Renee is currently pursing a PhD in Biomedical Sciences at UC San Diego

Ishani Roychowdhury (2022)

Pursuing a Food Science Bachelor's at Purdue University.

Vikas SRinivasa - BS (2020-2021)

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