Microbiology: Education, R&D and Market

Alexander Zuniga is a first year candidate for a Master’s of Science under the Department of Biological & Agricultural Engineering at Texas A&M. His thesis is under the focus of Displacement Ventilation to Prevent Pathogen Spread during Meat Processing, in which he uses dynamic air sampling paired with computational fluid dynamic air modeling to monitor pathogens and create new heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) configurations to minimize contamination. Throughout his undergraduate years, he has worked at Texas A&M’s Aerosol Laboratory with Dr. Maria King on various projects. His scope of work includes using the wetted wall cyclone bioaerosol collector system in meat processing facilities, creating different wind tunnel configurations to perform EPA regulated shrouded probe testing and optimize virtual impactor nozzle design to lower cut point and reduce wall losses for monodisperse particles between 0.5 to 10 micrometers.