Margarethe A Cooper

Biography

The major focus of my Assistant Professor of Practice position is developing face-to-face, online and distance coursework and certifications for the Food Safety program with my colleagues. I work to recruit and retain students in the Food Safety program through my appointment as the Victor P. Smith Endowed Chair in Food Safety Education.  As part of the Endowment, I run a Food Safety summer program for high school students called SaferFoodCats. The Food Safety Education Endowment supports Food Safety Education endeavors for our stakeholders across the state of Arizona, with collaborations within our school, college, university and with industry partners.

In Fall semester my primary teaching duties encompass required courses in the Food Safety degree, Food Safety and Microbiology Lecture and Laboratory and Food Toxicology Lecture. Both lecture versions of the course include a fully online version to increase access to classes for students who may not be able to attend face-to-face classes due to work or ther obligations.

In the Spring semester, my teaching focus includes teaching Biology of Animal Parasites (an upper-division disease class), the non-majors General Microbiology online class, and a freshman colloquium called This Wormy World.   

Prior to working as an Assistant Professor of Practice here at the University of Arizona, I was an Assistant Professor teaching non-majors Microbiology at Los Angeles Pierce College in Woodland Hills, CA.  

My most recent research experience was as a Research Affiliate at the United States Department of Agriculture, in Albany, CA.  I was on a project in the Food Safety and Microbiology Unit analyzing the molecular interaction of Escherichia coli O157:H7 on lettuce using next generation sequencing. 

My first postdoctoral fellowship was in the Department of Cell Biology and Anatomy at the University of Arizona on a project analyzing how the malaria parasite (Plasmidium falciparum) feeds on hemoglobin in human red blood cells.  My second postdoctoral fellowship, also at the University of Arizona, was on a project in the former Department of Veterinary and Microbiology assessing Campylobacter jejuni in the food chain.  

 My doctoral research project was on the molecular epidemiology of Giardia lamblia in humans and dogs in Dr. Chuck Sterling’s laboratory.

Degrees

• Ph.D. Pathobiology
• University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, United States
• Molecular typing of Giardia lamblia in humans and dogs and evidence for sexual recombination.
• B.S. Microbiology
• University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, United States