Crista Wadsworth

Dr. Wadsworth is an evolutionary biologist whose research focuses on antimicrobial resistance in bacteria. Bacterial resistance is one of the greatest and most critical public health crises of our time, raising the specter of untreatable infections and a return to the pre-antibiotic era. Research in the Wadsworth Lab is currently motivated by elucidating the mechanisms of resistance in pathogen species, and characterizing the reservoir of resistance alleles available to pathogens in commensal species and their potential for horizontal transfer. Related topics of interest include microbial speciation, niche specialization, and adaptive evolution. The lab uses a wide array of experimental approaches, combining genomics and wet-lab techniques.

Dr. Wadsworth joined RIT in 2019 after a postdoctoral fellowship at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health with Dr. Yonatan Grad. She earned her Ph.D. from Tufts University in 2016, and her B.A. from Smith College in 2010. Dr. Wadsworth is currently a Visiting Scientist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.