Sonia Tiquia
 Sonia Tiquia Faculty Affiliate |
Dr. Sonia Tiquia is an Assistant Professor of Microbiology at the UM-Dearborn and has been working as an environmental microbiologist for more than ten years. She has established an international reputation for her contributions to the field. Her previous work resulted in 44 publications in peer reviewed journals and more than 85 presentations at national and international meetings.
Her research concerns the development and use of molecular tools, genomics, and cultivation technologies to characterize novel organisms, microbial consortia, communities, activities, and other novel properties; and to study their roles in diverse environments. Much of her current work centers on three main themes: (1) Microbial community dynamics and diversity in natural environments and engineered systems; (2) Application of molecular tools in contaminant remediation, global climate change, public health and industrial and agricultural practice; (3) Waste processing biology and microbiology.
Tiquia teaches microbiology, applied and environmental microbiology, microbial physiology and microbial genetics.
Sonia Tiquia’s energy area of interest is on the use microbes to produce ethanol from switchgrass (Panicum virgatum). Switchgrass is considered a good candidate for biofuel, especially ethanol production due to its huge biomass output and high cellulose content. Compared to cornstarch ethanol production, several factors make cellulosic ethanol production more costly and less efficient. One important barrier is lower sugar yields due to the heterogeneous and recalcitrant nature of cellulosic biomass. More effort is needed to pretreat and solubilize hemicellulose and cellulose because they are locked into a rigid cell-wall structure with lignin. Another impediment for ethanol production via enzymatic saccharification of cellulose is the low level of activity in native cellulose.
Tiquia’s approach is to use molecular tools, genomics, and cultivation/enrichment technologies to characterize novel organisms, microbial consortia, communities, activities, and other novel properties of cellulosic microbes; and to study their roles in biomass decomposition.
Sonia Tiquia is a MMPEI Faculty Affiliate.