Dr. Maria D. King Texas A&M University, USA

Maria King, Ph.D., Associate Professor, is a biological-chemical engineer at the Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, and the Director of the Center for Agricultural Air Quality Engineering and Science (CAAQES) at Texas A&M University. She is an expert in aerobiology, microbiology, molecular biology, and computational modeling. Her research focuses... read moreon the collection of aerosolized nano, - and bioparticles, including viruses, bacteria, and fungi, and the analysis of their microbiome composition. Using new technologies including molecular dynamics design and biolayer interferometry helps her team delineate the interactions between aerosolized bioparticles, surface materials, and the effect of the environment on antibiotic resistance in bacteria. Her team creates particle tracking velocimetry images and computational air flow models to visualize and mitigate the spread of virus and bacterial bioaerosols in critical infrastructures including hospitals, transport systems, and food processing facilities.

She has published numerous papers and book chapters and enjoys teaching two core classes, “Thermodynamics” and “Fundamentals of Biological Engineering” and two graduate courses “Bioaerosols and Modeling” and “Biotechnology Principles and Techniques”.