BioBE center graduate student Ann Womack attended the “Workshop on Microbial Sampling in the Indoor Environment” sponsored by the Sloan Foundation and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) held on the NIST campus in Gaithersburg, MD on February 14-15, 2011. The workshop focused on the challenges of sampling microbes in the built environment. Discussion topics included the limitations of sample collection methods, the need for standards in the reporting of metadata, and future directions to improve methods for studying microbes in the built environment.