Dr. Jacob Walsh
Assistant Professor - Chemistry

Dr. Jacob Walsh is an analytical and natural product chemist whose research interest is in microbial chemical ecology, focusing on competitive environments and pathogenesis. His research uses mass spectrometry and metabolomics to identify biologically relevant compounds to understand the roles these secondary metabolites may have in serving the producing microbe and what can be recognized as a virulence factor during infections. Jacob acquired his PhD in analytical chemistry from the University of Western Ontario, where he worked with Agriculture and Agri-food Canada, where he studied mycotoxins and fungal agriculture diseases. He then pursued post-doctoral studies at McMaster University, where he studied preclinical antibiotic discovery and antibiotic resistance. His post-doctoral work was on the application of mass spectrometry to mine extract libraries of actinomycete bacteria for potentially novel antibiotics. Jacob is currently working on understanding the regulation and potential roles of metal-binding natural products in pathogenesis and how these systems can be leveraged for human health and agriculture sustainability.