معرفی
Tarja Pitkänen serves as Associate Professor at the University of Helsinki's Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, specifically within the Department of Food Hygiene and Environmental Health. She leads the Waterborne Pathogens Research Group and co-affiliates with the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL), focusing on environmental health risks from waterborne microbes.
- Veterinary science
- Environmental sciences
- Public health (environmental/occupational)
- Environmental engineering
- Microbiology/virology
Her research specializes in water microbiology, fecal source tracking, and zoonotic infection prevention. Current projects include EU-funded WastPan for wastewater pathogen surveillance and ODIN-MPox for monkeypox environmental tracking.
Recent publications focus on rapid pathogen detection in drinking water and antimicrobial resistance monitoring through wastewater analysis. Her team has developed multi-pathogen surveillance systems and genomic tracking methods for SARS-CoV-2 variants.
Supervision includes doctoral students Pauliina Tomberg (2025), Heli Hakolehto (2022), and Venla Vuorisalmi (2022), alongside master's thesis supervisors Essi Roininen (2023) and Annastiina Rytkönen (2021).
- 2024-2026: EU Horizon Europe funding for ODIN-MPox project
- 2024-2027: EU funding for Watershed Safety Plan
- 2023-2024: Foundation funding for Dicrocoelium dendriticum research
- 2020-2025: Ministry-funded projects on coastal pasture health and Campylobacter epidemiology
