Research interest: Pellicles, structured bacterial communities that form at air-liquid interfaces, undergo a three-dimensional (3D) morphogenesis program that produces striking macroscale patterns. Achieving the final architecture is crucial for the bacteria residing within pellicles to garner survival advantages, which pathogens leverage to cause serious infections. In V. cholerae pellicles, quorum sensing regulates deposition of extracellular matrix, which drives the appearance of the mature 3D pellicle architecture marked by a fractal pattern of wrinkling. The collective cell behaviors and patterns of gene expression that dictate pellicle 3D architecture are unknown. My overarching goal is to discover how material properties and quorum-sensing gene expression interact across spatial scales in V. cholerae pellicles as they develop. To do so, I am applying a new single-molecule fluorescence in situ hybridization (smFISH) approach that I pioneered for use in pellicles, and I am combining it with 3D imaging of both live and fixed pellicles using confocal microscopy.