Dora Taggart
President, Microbial Insights
Dora Taggart is the President of Microbial Insights, Inc. in Knoxville, Tennessee. She received a Biomedical Engineering degree from Vanderbilt University and has focused on the optimization and implementation of molecular tools for environmental remediation, microbiologically influenced corrosion and microbial source tracking. Under Dora’s direction, MI has become the leading molecular environmental laboratory with locations in the US, Australia and Europe specializing in DNA, RNA, and isotope testing that aids consulting firms, government agencies and academia in environmental restoration and corrosion mitigation.
Over the course of her career, Dora has become a global ambassador for the environmental restoration industry, regularly presenting as an invited/keynote speaker at environmental and corrosion conferences, leading hundreds of technical workshops worldwide, and co-authoring guidance documents with advisory groups like the Interstate Technology Regulatory Council (ITRC) and Environmental Remediation Wiki (Remediapedia) to support appropriate use and interpretation of molecular tools. In 2016, MI received the Woman Owned Business Excellence Award and Dora received the Business Person of the Year for Scott County in 2017. She serves on the Board of Directors of Bottle Rocket Productions, the Boys and Girls Club of the Cumberland Plateau and Environmental Workshops, LLC. She is also a member of the Board of Visitors for the department of Microbiology at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
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Keynote Speaker
As the President of Microbial Insights, Mrs. Taggart has spoken at hundreds of environmental conferences to tens of thousands all over the world and maybe you’ve seen her speak before, but at the Global EnviroSummit she will be presenting on some of the most unique projects that her company has worked on.
What do lunar rocks and king tut have in common? Molecular challenges.
Over the past 30 years, NASA has hired Microbial Insights to analyze a variety of samples including lunar rock that they brought back from the moon. The goal was to characterized the different bacteria found on and in the rocks and MI performed sequencing on the samples identifying the microorganisms present.
King Tut was an ancient Egyptian Pharaoh that ruled from 1334 – 1325 BC and he passed away at a young age, likely 18 or 19. His tomb was first opened in 1922 and there have been spots that have remained unchanged over the past 98 years. The Getty Institute hired Microbial Insights in 2012 to investigate the spots for clues in this ancient mystery.
On April 5th during our lunch hour, Dora will give us a rare look at some of the untold mysteries of the universe.
