UC Merced’s Grad Slam Champion Explores Mucus-Fungus Battle Behind Valley Fever

Nervous but prepared, Tahirah Williams took the stage at UC Merced’s Grad Slam competition in March and delivered her three-minute talk, “More Than Slime: When Mucus Meets the Valley Fever Invader.” By day’s end, she had been announced as the university’s 12th Grad Slam Campus Champion.

“It feels unreal; sometimes I think, ‘Did that really happen?’” said the fourth-year Quantitative and Systems Biology Ph.D. candidate from Jamaica. “I definitely felt the nerves, the anxiety, and my heart pounding.”

The victory earned Williams a $5,000 prize and the honor of competing at the UC systemwide finals on April 22 in Sacramento. Second place and $2,000 was awarded to Environmental Systems graduate student Zachary Malone and third place and $1,000 was awarded to Quantitative and Systems Biology graduate student Zahra Alitaneh. 

In Professor Clarissa Nobile’s lab, Williams’ research focuses on understanding host and fungal pathogen interactions.

“Her research focuses on how mucus influences Coccidioides, the fungal pathogen responsible for Valley fever, a topic of particular importance for our region. Her ability to convey its relevance to the public will have a real impact,” Nobile said.

Williams emphasized that Valley fever is easily inhaled when dust is disturbed, making farmworkers, construction crews and residents especially vulnerable.

“When mucus is present, it doesn't just passively sit by; it fights back, but we don't know how fungi, like Coccidioides, respond to this fight, and that is where my research comes in,” said Williams during her talk that wooed the judges. She highlighted the challenges of Valley fever, especially in the Central Valley.

A key challenge is that antifungals used to treat this disease are not specific to Cocci, raising the risk of drug resistance. Diagnosis is also difficult because symptoms mimic conditions like pneumonia, COVID and lung cancer.

“Those are the driving reasons why we still study Cocci, and why we're trying to understand it from its very earliest point of infection, what it does, and how it changes, and maybe we can target those to create new ways to treat or diagnose,” she said.