Assistant ProfessorTowson University
8000 York Road
Science Complex
Towson, Maryland 21252
Email: aestes@towson.edu
Phone: 410-704-3242
Visit Anne's Research Website
Research Disciplines: Research Interests:
Host-microbe symbioses, microbiome diversity and function, dung beetles, antibiotic resistance, biodegradation, microbial ecology, bacterial genomics, science communication, science writing
View Anne's CVBiographical Sketch
Dr. Anne Estes is an integrative biologist interested in the effect of the host diet and physiology on the genome and evolution of the host’s microbiome. The Estes laboratory examines the effect of diet and antibiotic perturbation of the dung beetle digestive system microbiome, an insect essential to human and environmental health. These include: (a) the interaction between a host’s diet and physiology and the diversity, genome content, and function of its microbiome and (b) the molecular mechanisms facilitating the establishment and maintenance of host-bacterial symbioses, especially during disturbance events such as antibiotic exposure.
Education
Dr. Estes earned her B.S. and MS in Biology at Auburn University. She first began studying insect-microbial interactions during her doctoral work at the University of Arizona, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. After completing her doctoral work, she was a Visiting Assistant Professor at Towson University where she and her students began working on the dung beetle microbiome. Dr. Estes learned next generation sequencing, microbiome analysis, and bacterial genomics as a post-doctoral fellow at the Institute for Genome Sciences.