Karna Gowda

Karna Gowda is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Microbiology at The Ohio State University, affiliated with the Interdisciplinary Biophysics Graduate Program and the Center of Microbiome Science. He earned a B.S. from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, a Ph.D. from Northwestern University, and conducted postdoctoral research at the University of Chicago.

His research focuses on understanding natural design principles underlying microbial community functions, integrating experiments with dynamical systems modeling and statistical learning. Key areas include microbial ecology/evolution, quantitative biology, and applied mathematics. The Gowda Lab explores topics like denitrification physiology, nutrient limitation effects, and single-cell 'omics approaches in microbial communities.

Recent work highlights include studies on environmentally-dependent microbial interactions and functional landscape analysis. The lab has advised students such as Dominic Cipiti (PhD candidate) and Aouss Azzouz (alumni), with collaborations extending to field scientists and environmental 'omics datasets.

Lab activities include managing teams like Anja Steinert (Lab Manager) and hosting visiting researchers. Ongoing projects aim to refine computational methods for single-cell genomics and transcriptomics in community contexts, alongside investigating the physiological costs of metabolic functions in denitrifying communities.