I’m a physicist turned biologist. I lead the Barber Lab in the Department of Microbiology at The Ohio State University, where my research focuses on understanding the growth of the Gram-positive bacterial cell wall.

Updates

• 2026-05-26 Our paper on how wall teichoic acids regulate peptidoglycan synthesis to maintain rod shape in Bacillus subtilis is out in Nature Microbiology! Read it here, or check out this research briefing for a general-audience explainer.
• 2025-08-25 The Barber lab is now open, and we welcome applicants at all levels! Please send all communication to barber.527@osu.edu.
• 2025-03-20 It’s official: the Barber Lab is starting this fall, at Ohio State University Microbiology!
• 2024-09-03 We uploaded our latest paper to bioRxiv! Check it out here: Wall teichoic acids regulate peptidoglycan synthesis by paving cell wall microstructure

Contact

Email, GitHub and LinkedIn are in the footer below. Find me elsewhere:

• orcid 0000-0003-1252-5181
• scholar Google Scholar
• researchgate ResearchGate
• cv download PDF

Many organisms were harmed to generate this figure from my Ph.D. defense, none more so than myself.