Dominique Tertigas is a PhD candidate at McMaster University in the Department of Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences in the lab of Dr. Michael Surette. Dominique’s PhD project focuses on the gut microbiome in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Her work combines microbiology, genomics, and metagenomics to discover novel pathogens in IBD. Dominique has been awarded several scholarships, including the Canadian Graduate Scholarship (Master’s) and Ontario Graduate Scholarships, to support her research.

Dominique is a part of McMaster’s Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research and Farncombe Family Digestive Health Research Institute. As a trainee in these institutes, Dominique helps organize student-run conferences, plan trainee workshops, and mentor trainees in learning bioinformatics. Dominique has also applied her expertise in microbiome research to additional projects investigating the microbiome in the context of antibiotics, probiotic use, One Health, and more!

Dominique brings these experiences and training perspectives to Ontario Genomics’ Board as the student representative.