Elliston Vallarino Reyes is a PhD student in the Microbiology program at McGill University. His research describes how planktonic and biofilm microbial communities in cooling towers change through time and space, and how this correlates with the presence of Legionella spp. Elliston has worked on different projects at four national research institutes in his home country, Mexico. Thanks to his background and a B.Sc. in Biotechnology Engineering, Elliston has the skillset and knowledge to study microbial communities in water systems.