Josiah Davis

Experience

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  Middle Georgia State University

  Jan 2014 - Dec 2016

  Undergraduate Student Researcher

  Projects“The isolation, culturing, and identification of Magnetotactic Bacteria"“Survey of Fungi in campus buildings”

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  Golden Isles Cruise Lines

  May 2015 - Jan 2022

  Head Bartender/ (Assistant Bar Manager (2016-2020)/ Bar manager (2020-2022)
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  The University of Georgia

  Aug 2019 - Jul 2020

  Post-Baccalaureate Student Researcher

  Plastic waste is a global problem due to the durability and abundance of the material. Of these plastics, polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is the most abundant. Recently, an organism was discovered at a plastic recycling center in Japan that was shown to degrade PET through the production of the enzyme PETase. The goal of our project is to discover other novel organisms that degrade PET and characterize them. In order to find these organisms, we took a similar approach to the group in Japan and searched where plastic waste is found. Twenty-three samples were collected from the Athens-Clarke County Recycling Center in Athens, Georgia. All 23 samples have been used to inoculate minimal media containing either PET or the monomer components terephthalic acid (TA) or ethylene glycol (EG). Once growth was observed in tubes, samples were streaked for isolation on polypeptone and minimal media plates and isolated colonies were picked and put back in the minimal media to confirm growth. Isolated colonies were picked and then scaled up into 40mL of their desired media and grown for DNA extraction. Samples were sent for 16S sequencing resulting in the identification of one organism most similar to Burkholderia rhizosphere which has been previously been shown to use TA as its sole carbon source. Ongoing work includes additional screening of other terrestrial and aquatic samples and isolation of EG and TA degrading organisms through use of selective media as well as cloning and expression and characterization of novel PETases. Show less

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  Cornell University

  Aug 2020 - Jul 2022

  Graduate Student Researcher
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  FDA

  Mar 2023 - now

  Human and Animal Food Investigator