Faculty Spotlight: Erica Hartmann
Erica Hartmann
Where were you born and where did you study (undergrad, grad, post-doc)
I grew up in the DC area. I graduated with a Bachelor of Science in cellular and molecular biology in 2008 from Johns Hopkins University. I started doing research while at Hopkins, specifically using mass spectrometry-based proteomics, a technique that allows us to identify microbes and figure out what they are doing, in the environment. I continued this work during my Ph.D. at Arizona State University, where I was part of the first cohort of the interdisciplinary Biological Design program, from which I graduated in 2012. I then did two postdocs: the first at the French Commission for Atomic Energy (Marcoule) and the second at the University of Oregon. At Marcoule, I followed up on my Ph.D. work in mass spectrometry-based proteomics. At Oregon, I branched out into microbial ecology and indoor microbiomes, using DNA-based methods like metagenomics.
How long have you been at NU & briefly describe your research program?
I’ve been at NU since the Fall of 2016. The main focus of my research program is understanding interactions between the microbes and chemicals that surround us. A lot of this work centers around looking at how our use of antimicrobial chemicals and products impacts antimicrobial resistance. To that end, I continue to use cutting-edge molecular biology methods, as well as traditional microbiology, analytical chemistry, and increasingly synthetic biology.
What courses do you teach?
I teach an introductory course on Biological and Ecological Principles (CIV ENV 202), an environmental chemistry course (CIV ENV 370), and an advanced course on molecular methods in microbiology research (CIV ENV 447).
Did you always know you would become a professor? What attracted you to an academic career?
I’ve been interested in a career in environmental science since I was pretty young. I started in research as an undergraduate after watching Prof. Rolf Halden give a talk on bioremediation, which is the use of microbes to clean up toxic pollutants in the environment. At the end of his talk, I immediately asked how to get involved, and a short while later, I joined his lab. Working with him, I fell in love with the intellectual freedom that an academic career provides, and I’ve never looked back.
What is the most challenging part of your job?
The hardest part of my job is also the most rewarding: training wonderful students and postdocs and then saying goodbye when they go off to the next stage of their careers.
What do you consider your most significant research finding or accomplishment thus far?
I discovered a correlation between antimicrobial chemicals and antibiotic resistance genes in indoor dust. Several researchers have looked for chemical pollutants in dust, and as part of the growing indoor microbiome research field, many others have identified the bacteria that we find in the dust. However, I was the first to combine both chemical and biological analyses of indoor dust on the same samples and specifically to look for interactions between the chemicals and the bacteria.
I focused my study on antimicrobial chemicals and antibiotic resistance because these issues are extremely relevant to public health and are very much in the public eye. At the same time as my work was published, the FDA released their decision to ban several antimicrobials from hand soaps–including the ones I identified as being connected to antibiotic resistance genes in the dust. As a consequence, my work received a considerable amount of attention in the media.
I am proud to have contributed to the body of work examining our use of antimicrobial chemicals and their impact on the environment, and I am additionally proud to have contributed my voice to the public discussion that ensued. As important as it is to do this kind of research, it’s even more important to educate consumers about the impact their choices can have. My crowning achievement is thus not only to have discovered a phenomenon that affects public health but also to have communicated those results to the public, thus promoting a behavioral change to prevent the spread of antibiotic resistance.
Although triclosan has been banned, antimicrobial chemicals continue to proliferate in our personal care products and other materials. My research program has thus evolved and expanded to include the study of benzalkonium chloride, a popular replacement for triclosan, as well as metal-based antimicrobials.
Is there someone or something that has inspired you?
As a rule, I try not to idolize individuals. We’re all human and thus all have our faults. That being said, in 2008, as a first-year graduate student, I had the immense privilege of attending the Superfund Research Program Annual Meeting in Pacific Grove, CA, where Dr. Arlene Blum was a keynote speaker.
Arlene Blum is one of the most interesting people I have ever met. Her Wikipedia entry says she “is best known for leading an all-woman ascent of Annapurna I,” sometimes referred to as the world’s deadliest mountain. But I am much more familiar with her work on flame retardants. As Arlene explained in her keynote, her scientific research in the 1970s revealed that these chemicals are toxic and carcinogenic, leading to their ban on children’s sleepwear. She then left research to pursue mountaineering, including the Annapurna summit. Years later, Arlene was alarmed to discover that toxic flame retardants were still being used in a variety of settings, including upholstered furniture. So the same year that I was lucky enough to hear her speak, Arlene launched the Green Science Policy Institute, focused on outreach and advocacy to remove toxic chemicals from consumer goods.
At the time, I didn’t quite make the connection between my environmental work and her focus on consumer health, except that we were both concerned about similar types of chemicals. But I knew Arlene was a force to be reckoned with, someone with drive and vision and an unparalleled sense of adventure. The kind of person who affects science policy and founds non-profits and still makes time to enjoy the world that she works so hard to protect. In short, I knew I wanted to be like Arlene when I grew up.
When I started working at the Biology and the Built Environment Center at the University of Oregon, it finally clicked. I had spent all this time thinking about how to clean up pollutants outside, but the whole reason that so many of these chemicals are out there is that we use them here, in our homes, offices, and schools. What then was the impact of these chemicals on microbes in indoor environments? And how do those microbe-chemical interactions affect our health? I have been asking these questions ever since, especially looking at antimicrobial chemicals and antibiotic resistance.
What do you do for fun when you are not working?
They say people fall into two categories: those who eat to live, and those who live to eat. I am definitely the latter. When I’m not working, you can often find me cooking something extravagant or checking out Chicago’s amazing restaurants.
How do you explain what you do and why it is essential to someone who isn’t a scientist or engineer?
Many people think of microbes as germs. This attitude favors the widespread use of antimicrobial products, like hand soaps and cutting boards. However, microbes are all around us all the time, and we can’t survive without them. I look at commonly used chemicals and the microbes living indoors. Specifically, I’m interested in antimicrobial chemicals and whether they make microbes more antibiotic-resistant because antibiotic resistance is a global health threat. My work identifies where antibiotic resistance is a significant problem and how human actions impact antibiotic resistance. This information will help us make intelligent choices about how to best use antimicrobials.
Is there a question we should have asked or anything you would like to add?
Fun Fact: I'm fluent in French and conversant in a handful of other languages. Some people think that's impressive, but I'm told my grandfather spoke 15 languages.