Chiara Schilten

Undergraduate Fellow, Plant Disease Team

“I am a biology major with a minor in international studies and global health. I want to learn how to conduct research to eventually give back to the community. I also want to learn how the relationship between the environment, animals, and humans plays a part in public health.” 

Chiara’s interest in biology combined with public health led her straight to Team Plant Disease. 

“I read the Plant Disease bio on the website and the first thing I noticed was the team’s public health perspective. On the team we are studying powdery mildew, which is a way to track plant disease. We analyze how plants are affected by soil chemistry, water, air, and other variables. If any of these are affecting the plants, they may be affecting humans as well.” 

Team Plant Disease’s research looks into how urbanization impacts pathogen dynamics by doing research on plant communities across a gradient of urbanization throughout the St. Louis Region. Chiara is intrigued by this aspect of their research since urbanization has impacts on both plants and people. 

“Urban and rural areas do not have the same natural conditions. For example, air pollution, higher population density, and hotter temperatures are found in cities. If we figure out what conditions are present surrounding plants infected with mildew in urban areas, we can compare that to the conditions in suburban and rural areas and see which plants do better. Then we can relate that back to public health.  

There is a lot of lead in the soil, downtown. I am going to do my independent project on soil chemistry, looking at what we find in the soil of a downtown plot and comparing that to research done by a graduate student who has looked at rural and suburban plots. How do the types of soil compare? How does that help us better test soil in the city for public health initiatives like community urban gardens?”