{"689778":{"#nid":"689778","#data":{"type":"event","title":"MS Defense by Natalie Miller","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EIn partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMaster of Science in Bioinformatics\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003Ein the\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESchool of Biological Sciences\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ENatalie Miller\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWill defend her thesis\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E\u201cMetagenome-based Quantification of the Urban Effects on the Chattahoochee River\u201d\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EApril 21st, 2026\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E2:00 PM (EST) in EBB 4029\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EZoom Link:\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgatech.zoom.us%2Fj%2F91878010913%3Fpwd%3DMhbbrp4zUQ0bBkjjFCMqB03afW4wYa.1\u0026amp;data=05%7C02%7Ctm186%40gtvault.onmicrosoft.com%7Cc1c66eac0b44428f4d8308de9b1dbcfc%7C482198bbae7b4b258b7a6d7f32faa083%7C1%7C0%7C639118749201545407%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C\u0026amp;sdata=w94kdgoEpJqAo8Y%2FMMW4qgsHBcJCXBsUEvLq2WAaR%2FI%3D\u0026amp;reserved=0\u0022 title=\u0022https:\/\/nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgatech.zoom.us%2Fj%2F91878010913%3Fpwd%3DMhbbrp4zUQ0bBkjjFCMqB03afW4wYa.1\u0026amp;data=05%7C02%7Clisa.redding%40biosci.gatech.edu%7C940d9f50e76541c7191508de9b0cefbf%7C482198bbae7b4b258b7a6d7f32faa0\u0022\u003Ehttps:\/\/gatech.zoom.us\/j\/91878010913?pwd=Mhbbrp4zUQ0bBkjjFCMqB03afW4wYa.1\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EThesis Advisor:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr. Kostas Konstantinidis\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESchool of Biological Sciences,\u0026nbsp;School of Civil and Environmental Engineering\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ECommittee Members:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr. Joel Kostka\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESchool of Biological Sciences\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr. Katherine Graham\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESchool of Civil and Environmental Engineering\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EAbstract:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe Chattahoochee River serves as a major freshwater resource in the southeastern United States. Atlanta is by far the largest metropolitan area on the river, with up to 1\/3 of the river flow being used by its ~6 million inhabitants. The sources of fecal pollution in the river, and more importantly their relative contributions, remain essentially speculative since previous studies targeted only specific microbial indicators. We addressed this gap using short-read shotgun metagenomic sequencing of nine riverine sampling sites transecting the Atlanta metropolitan area, including three sites located downstream of the city every ~20km and three wastewater treatment plants (influent and effluent samples) within the city, across three sampling times (periods) within a year (2018), in the summertime. We recovered 190 good-to-high quality representative metagenome-assembled genomes (rMAGs) and used their relative abundance to infer the impact of the city on the indigenous freshwater microbial communities. We noted substantial fecal pollution within the Atlanta area, including elevated abundance of beta-lactamase antibiotic resistance genes (up to a 4.56-fold increase) and human-associated and wastewater-derived MAGs in the high vs. the low precipitation sampling period. Consistently, SourceApp (Lindner et al., ES\u0026amp;T, 2025) and further analysis revealed that untreated sewage MAGs comprised up to 2.5% of the total river metagenomes, indicating sewage escape events. However, all these taxa and genes that peaked in abundance within the city limits were largely undetectable 20 or 40 km downstream, indicating substantial resilience of the ecosystem against pollution and\/or dilution of fecal pollution.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u201cMetagenome-based Quantification of the Urban Effects on the Chattahoochee River\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"\u201cMetagenome-based Quantification of the Urban Effects on the Chattahoochee River\u201d"}],"uid":"27707","created_gmt":"2026-04-15 20:36:53","changed_gmt":"2026-04-15 20:37:26","author":"Tatianna Richardson","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","field_event_time":{"event_time_start":"2026-04-21T14:00:00-04:00","event_time_end":"2026-04-21T15:00:00-04:00","event_time_end_last":"2026-04-21T15:00:00-04:00","gmt_time_start":"2026-04-21 18:00:00","gmt_time_end":"2026-04-21 19:00:00","gmt_time_end_last":"2026-04-21 19:00:00","rrule":null,"timezone":"America\/New_York"},"location":"EBB 4029","extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"221981","name":"Graduate Studies"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"111531","name":"ms defense"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[{"id":"1788","name":"Other\/Miscellaneous"}],"invited_audience":[{"id":"78771","name":"Public"}],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}