Jose Collado is a Junior Specialist for the Leung Lab. He earned his BSc in Nutritional Sciences from the University of California, Berkeley. His research interests lie in utilizing the human microbiome to better understand participant health and addressing health disparities in underserved populations. In the lab, Jose supports patient recruitment and retention, and he will be involved in microbial sample processing and data analysis once received. Jose’s past research experience involved manipulating host-microbe interactions in tomato plants to protect against bacterial pathogens at the Koskella Lab. He is a Bay Area RaMP alumni and is currently a PROPEL scholar with hopes to start a PhD program in microbiology within the next five years.