Lennel’s paper on grazing just came out in Applied and Environmental Microbiology Grazing intensity alters network complexity and predator–prey relationships in the soil microbiome

We welcome Purbasa Kole, a new PhD Student. Purbasa’s project will utilize high-throughput culturing to isolate beneficial microorganisms from soil. She will also determine microbial contributions to soil health.

Lennel, Ditam, Kivi, and Dr. Banerjee gave oral presentations at the Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of America in Long Beach, California.

Debarshi has been selected to participate in the 2024-2027 Foundation for Food and Agricultural Research (FFAR) Fellow program. Congrats, Debarshi!

Lennel has received the 2024 Possibility Entrepreneur Scholarship. Miranda has received the 2024 Francis LaPlante Soil Health Scholarship.

Lennel has been selected as one of the Ambassadors of the National Microbiome Data Collaborative (NMDC).

Sakshi Paudel successfully defended her master’s thesis. She will be starting a PhD at the University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign.

Cecelia Castleberry successfully defended her master’s thesis. She was co-supervised  by Drs. Caley Gasch and Samiran Banerjee.

We welcome Ditam Chakraborty, a new PhD student. Ditam’s PhD project will utilize culturomics and biotechnological approaches to validate the role of microbial keystone taxa.

Rylie has been awarded the 2022 Funke Medel of Excellence. This medel recognizes the best all-round student in the Microbiology program. Congratulations, Rylie!