Rachel Noble

Dr. Noble is a Distinguished Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Institute of Marine Sciences in Morehead City, North Carolina. She shares joint appointments with the Institute for the Environment, the Department of Marine Sciences, and the Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering within the Gillings School of Global Public Health. Her research program currently bridges the connections between the fields of environmental microbiology and microbial ecology. Her research program focused on the development of new, molecular methods for quantifying viral and bacterial pathogens in water and shellfish. She also conducts research on the hydrological patterns of stormwater as related to microbial contaminant fate and transport, with a focus the microbial contaminant impact on North Carolina’s vital recreational and shellfish harvesting waters. Dr. Noble has worked for more than two decades on the development of rapid (<2 hours) real-time quantification methods for bacteria such as E. coli and Enterococcus in beach waters, and for viral pathogens such as norovirus. Another strong interest of Dr. Noble's is the burgeoning field of the “Ecology of Marine Infectious Disease” in which she studies pathogenic bacteria such as Vibrios.

Contact Information: [email protected]; 252-726-6841