UMR Student Kaitlyn Roers Honored at 2026 Sustainability Symposium

University of Minnesota Rochester (UMR) student Kaitlyn Roers was honored at the 2026 Sustainability Symposium.

Each year, outstanding students whose presentations, posters or creative works demonstrate strong research, clear connections to sustainability and an engaging delivery are celebrated at the Sustainability Symposium. 

Roers received a poster award for her directed study with faculty members Rachel Olson and Micaela Haas. Through this directed study, she developed a protocol to isolate bacteriophages that will be used to teach students in UMR’s microbiology course. 

While the current lecture structure teaches about bacteriophages, implementing this experiment in the laboratory will provide a visual and hands-on approach for students to engage in their learning. Furthermore, the implementation of this coursework would allow students to participate in their own CURE (Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experience), where students can develop their own hypotheses, collect and test their own environmental samples. 

At the Sustainability Symposium, Roers presented her research Sampling Environmental Reservoirs for Phage, and highlighted the beneficial implications bacteriophages pose on the environment and sustainability. Bacteriophages hold vast potential in the future of environmental and public health, as phage collection and cultivation poses new opportunities for water sampling and pathogen removal from waterways.

“Everyone at the Sustainability Symposium was so passionate about their work, and uplifting of those around them. It was really inspiring to see so many people from different backgrounds, majors and campuses come together to celebrate the future of research in education and sustainability,” shared Roers.