Sarah J. Swerdlow was awarded a travel award from the American Society of Microbiology

Sarah J. Swerdlow, assistant professor of biology at the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg, was awarded the 2025 Peggy Cotter Travel Award from the American Society of Microbiology (ASM) and Allegheny Branch of ASM.

The Peggy Cotter Awards, fully funded by ASM, are named in honor of Peggy Cotter, past president of ASM, to recognize her commitment to mentoring and training of early career scientists. Awardees use the award to partially defray the costs for registration, accommodation and travel associated with attending ASM Microbe, the largest microbial sciences gathering in the world.

Swerdlow has been recognized for implementing the SEA-PHAGES program at Pitt-Greensburg, and has also been accepted into the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s SEA-GENES program. Under Swerdlow’s leadership, Pitt-Greensburg will be the first campus in the University of Pittsburgh system to offer the SEA-GENES program in fall 2025.