Plant nutrient metabolism is regulated through a variety of biological processes, many of which are controlled and coordinated by internal factors such as cell type and developmental stage as well as external factors such as soil quality and other environmental conditions. My research focuses on investigating the genetic and molecular underpinnings of developmental and physiological processes that have been altered to allow plants to tolerate challenging nutrient environments.

Join us for our Winter 2023 Bio Grad Seminar Series! This January, Alex Neitz (de la Iglesia Lab), Zoe Kulik (Sidor Lab), and Sujay Balebail (Sisneros Lab) will be presenting their research reports.

Mosquitoes use multiple host-associated cues to efficiently locate sources of blood. While detection mechanisms for longer-range cues like CO2 and odors have been widely studied, less is known about how mosquitoes sense the short-range heat and humidity gradients surrounding hosts. We recently demonstrated that heat-seeking in the malaria vector Anopheles gambiae is driven by cooling-activated neurons requiring the Ionotropic Receptor (IR) subunit IR21a.

Simon Snoeck | Steinbrenner Lab
"Evolutionary gain and loss of a plant pattern-recognition receptor for HAMP recognition"

Sarah Guiziou | Nemhauser Lab
"Integrases to record gene-expression during plant development"

Kristen Finch | Wasser Lab
“Designing and deploying forensic DNA tests for counter wildlife trafficking”