Alumni Interview w/

Angelo Ong
Tell us about yourself
Hi! I'm Angelo and I'm currently a
research scientist at UW in the
Environmental Health department within
the School of Public Health. I graduated
in 2019 with a Bachelor of Science in
Microbiology at UW. I was involved with
the UW Microphiles and was the Public
Relations Officer. I was also the Lead
Coordinator for the Microphiles Journal
which I helped create. My pronouns are
he/him.

What have you been doing since you

graduated?
Work takes up most of my time and
energy but in my free time, I enjoy
playing soccer, cooking, guitar, and
finding new music.
How did you end up as a research
scientist?
I spent a few months at my current lab as
an undergrad in my senior year. After a
summer of unemployment, I decided to
go back to learn more skills I wasn't able
to attain through my formal education. I
was very fortunate to have been offered
some funding after a few months and
eventually became full-time staff.
What does an average day look like?
Every day is different in the lab. It totally
depends on what kind of projects we
have going on. Some of the large projects
we have had were environmental
surveillance method comparisons for
detecting and/or quantifying Salmonella
Typhi, Poliovirus, or SARS-CoV-2 in
wastewater. Experiment for those
projects spanned entire, and sometimes
multiple, days. For S. Typhi, we had four
different concentration methods running
simultaneously on the same day (by
different lab personnel). It's a lot of
pipetting carefully, working aseptically,
and paying attention to detail in full PPE.
Then there are days where all we do is
autoclave biohazard waste and wash
dishes!

[1] [2]
How did/didn't the microbiology Microbiology is a gigantic and diverse
undergraduate program at UW field, if you look hard enough, there will
prepare you for your current job? be something for you.
The undergraduate program helped me
What are your plans for the future?
develop some fundamental microbiology I hope to apply to graduate school this
concepts along with some relevant wet year. I have a wide range of interests but
lab skills. I would say that the large generally, I'm interested in microbe-
majority of skills I have now were microbe/host-microbe interactions at
acquired on the job. I think the the community level and their potential
undergraduate program needs significant implications on human health.
improvement in teaching applied
concepts outside of medical microbiology
and also modern techniques even if it is
just through lectures. I think
microbiology students would benefit
more from bioinformatics,
metagenomics, or understanding
something like ddPCR than simply just
culture-based techniques (though still
important).

Do you have any advice for current

microbiology majors?
Don't take your education for granted
and get involved in undergraduate
research. The grading is discouraging but
some of the classes push how you think
as a microbiologist. More importantly, [3]
getting involved with undergraduate
research will allow you to make meaning
of the immense amount of information
we have to process. Not to mention, the [1] MS2 Bacteriophage plaques on a
skills from undergraduate research will double agar layer
be directly translatable to graduate [2] Presumptive Salmonella Typhi
school and industry. colonies on Bismuth Sulfite Agar
[3] Wastewater concentrates containing
SARS-CoV-2

Where Are They Now? is a Newsletter by the Microphiles at UW featuring a professionals

who graduated with a undergraduate degree in microbiology from UW within the past
couple of year. These are intended to highlight potential jobs or carrer paths current
Microbiology Majors can pursue after they graduate.