Sarah Allard
CONSERVE, USA
Biography
Dr. Sarah Allard is a postdoctoral fellow for CONSERVE, a Center of Excellence at the Nexus of Sustainable Water Reuse, Food, and Health. After receiving
her B.A. in Biology from Haverford College, she completed an ORISE fellowship in the Division of Microbiology at the FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied
Nutrition. For her dissertation research, she studied the tomato microbiome, using 16S rRNA gene sequencing to investigate the infl uence of various agricultural
practices and fi eld conditions on the structure and diversity of tomato fruit-, blossom-, and root-dwelling bacterial communities. She received her PhD from the
University of Maryland in 2016. Now, as part of the CONSERVE team based in the UMD School of Public Health, she is primarily working to characterize the
microbiomes of nontraditional irrigation water sources including surface water and reclaimed wastewater. She is passionate about working towards the adoption of
agricultural practices that are microbiologically safe, environmentally sustainable, and economically viable.