Evan Merkhofer

Evan Merkhofer serves as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Natural Sciences at Mount Saint Mary College, actively engaged in the Science Education Alliance-Phage Hunters Advancing Genomics and Evolutionary Science (SEA-PHAGES) program since at least 2016.

His research centers on bacteriophage genomics and undergraduate research pedagogy, with expertise in both in situ phage discovery (using hosts like Microbacterium foliorum, Mycobacterium smegmatis, and Gordonia terrae) and in silico bioinformatics analysis. This work bridges microbiology, evolutionary biology, and computational genomics to advance educational frameworks for STEM training.

Between 2016-2019, he taught 8 course sections including BIO1140 and SCI1950, mentoring 135+ undergraduates across discovery and genomics tracks. Courses met 1-2 times weekly for 3-4 hours, with student cohorts predominantly freshmen (78%) and sophomores (15%). He frequently collaborates with Dr. Suparna Bhalla on curriculum development and lab instruction within the SEA-PHAGES national network.