I am an Assistant Professor at The Pennsylvania State University’s Department of Food Science. I earned my BSc in microbiology, and a PhD in biosciences with a focus on biotechnology from the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. I conducted pre-doctoral and post-doctoral research in microbial genomics at the University of Oxford and Cornell University in Maiden and Wiedmann labs, respectively. In 2017, I assumed a faculty position at The Pennsylvania State University. Here, my lab is integrating next-generation sequencing, bioinformatics, epidemiological, and microbiological methods to investigate genetic and environmental factors affecting the transmission and persistence of foodborne pathogens and associated microbiomes in the food supply chain. In the context of food safety, my lab also studies the evolution and expression of bacterial virulence factors and antimicrobial resistance. In addition to utilizing advanced molecular analytics, including whole genome sequencing and microbiome sequencing-based analytics in food safety research, I continue modernizing food science curricula at undergraduate and graduate levels by teaching the application of molecular and sequencing methods. To learn more about my research, please visit my Google Scholar profile (https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=z_sZXosAAAAJ&hl=en) and my lab’s website (https://foodscience.psu.edu/research/labs/kovac).