Pimlapas Shinny Leekitcharoenphon

Pimlapas Shinny Leekitcharoenphon is a Senior Researcher and tenure-track academic at the National Food Institute (DTU Food), Technical University of Denmark, where she leads research in genomic epidemiology and whole genome sequencing of foodborne pathogens. She is affiliated with the DTU Microbes Initiative and has been actively contributing since completing her PhD in 2014, followed by a postdoc and current tenure-track position since 2019.

• PhD, Research Group for Genomic Epidemiology, DTU Food (2011–2014)
• Visiting PhD Student, Nuffield Department of Clinical Medicine, University of Oxford (2013)
• Postdoc, DTU Food (2014–2019)
• Researcher (Tenure Track), DTU Food (2019–Present)

Her research focuses on whole genome sequencing (WGS), bacterial genomics, antimicrobial resistance (AMR), and the population structure of foodborne pathogens such as Salmonella, Listeria monocytogenes, and Vibrio cholerae. She integrates machine learning and network diffusion models to improve food safety and outbreak detection. Her work contributes to UN Sustainable Development Goals related to health and well-being, responsible consumption, and life on land.

The most recent publications highlight a strong trend in applying WGS and metagenomics to public health challenges, including AMR surveillance in sewage, virulence prediction in Listeria, and pathogen evolution. These works reflect a multidisciplinary approach combining genomics, epidemiology, machine learning, and environmental microbiology.

She has received the EliteForsk-rejsestipendier award for international research mobility during her PhD. Her contributions to science also include peer review for journals like Frontiers in Microbiology.

Pimlapas has co-supervised four PhD students and serves as Principal Investigator on multiple funded projects, including grants from the Danish Dairy Research Foundation and Karl Pedersen and Hustrus Industrifond. She teaches both in-person and online courses on WGS and antimicrobial resistance, and has delivered invited lectures in Thailand, Singapore, and France. She is involved in major international collaborations such as COMPARE and the EU Reference Laboratory for Antimicrobial Resistance, and has contributed to capacity-building initiatives in Africa through the Fleming Fund.

She leads and participates in several active research projects focused on Campylobacter, Listeria, and AMR surveillance, often applying machine learning to genomic data for predictive modeling of pathogen behavior.