Postdoc Mengyi Dong Joins Virginia Tech Faculty

We’re very excited to announce that Mengyi Dong, who joined the David Lab in May 2023, has begun a new role as an Assistant Professor of Seafood Safety & Quality Engineering at the Virginia Seafood Agricultural Research and Extension Center of Virginia Tech. 

“The David Lab made me a better scientist and colleague. I’m excited to carry its culture of curiosity, rigor, and kindness into my new role at Virginia Tech,” Mengyi says. “The mentorship, community, and high standards there gave me the skills and confidence to build a program at Virginia Tech focused on molecular microbiology for food safety.”

In this new position, Mengyi will continue to study the intersection of molecular microbiology and macro food systems, using microbiome and mycobiome analysis to provide insights on seafood safety and quality. Her group will also monitor pathogens in aquaculture products and water systems—a methodology that became especially prominent during COVID-19 when it was used to measure infection rates. The ultimate goal is to deliver practical, scalable tools and guidance that improve monitoring, management, and decision-making across the seafood industry. Given the nature of her research, Mengyi and her group will be based at the Virginia Seafood Agricultural Research and Extension Center in seaside Hampton, Virginia, rather than the main campus in Blacksburg.

“Mengyi uniquely combines expertise in fields spanning food safety, genomics, nutrition, and the microbiome. She is also relentless and fearless in tackling ambitious projects, like her surveys of diet through wastewater, ” says Lawrence David, Associate Professor and Principal Investigator. “I fully expect her to become a leader at the intersection of multiple fields.” 

Mengyi’s postdoctoral work at the David Lab provided an ideal primer for this new role; in addition to her research on food safety and foodborne pathogens, she was also heavily involved in the Wastewater Project. This ongoing collaboration between the David Lab and Durham county reveals community-level eating habits, which can help inform public health policies and other initiatives. Additionally, these samples allow the lab to finely hone its FoodSeq technology. 

"By piloting our FoodSeq work in wastewater, Mengyi launched an entirely new direction for the lab. Her food science and food safety perspective shaped the project in ways that will guide us for years to come,” says Michelle Kirtley, Senior Research Analyst at the David Lab, who worked closely with Mengyi on this project.

At the David Lab, Mengyi mentored two undergraduates over multiple years while also offering guidance to PhD candidates. These experiences provided a strong base for leading her own lab. As a junior faculty member at Virginia Tech, she will direct a team of graduate and undergraduate students, providing mentorship and hands-on research opportunities.

“Mengyi combined scientific vision with mentorship,” Michelle adds. “As she pushed our FoodSeq work in new directions, she also made sure an undergraduate gained hands-on next-generation sequencing skills that made a valuable contribution to the project.”

Originally from Suzhou in the Jiangsu province of China, Mengyi began her academic career at Huazhong Agricultural University before moving to the U.S. to earn her MS in nutrition science from George Mason University and her PhD in food science and human nutrition with a graduate minor in statistics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her doctoral research focused on technology innovations within the food safety and quality space.

It’s bittersweet for us to bid farewell to Mengyi. Not only is she a talented researcher and generous collaborator, but her kindness and sunny disposition have enriched the David Lab. We wish her all the best!

“I’m grateful to my mentors, Lawrence David and Hao Feng, and colleagues at Duke and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign for supporting this journey,” she says. “I’m excited to collaborate across Virginia Tech and beyond—and to serve coastal communities and the seafood industry in Virginia and the Mid-Atlantic.”

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NOTE: Mengyi is seeking talented undergraduate researchers, MS, and PhD candidates to join her team. To learn more about these opportunities, contact her at mengyi.dong@vt.edu.