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we've been doing...

May 28th, 2025

We joined with James Schnable's group to wish Fangyi great success as she returns to China. It worked! Within the month she had a desirable offer. :D From left to right, clockwise around the table: Harshita Mangal, Cailin Smith, Diptadeep Basak, Rebecca Roston, Vladimir Torres-Rodriguez, Chidu Ullagaddi, Joslin Ishimwe, Samira Mahboub, Fangyi Li, Jensina Davis, James Schnable, Sofiya Aurora, and Nikee Shrestha (photo credit).

May 16th, 2025

We celebrate Evan & Jeremy's successful defenses at the Biochemistry graduation ceremony.

May 13th, 2025

Dr. Evan LaBrant defends his dissertation, "Screening for Chloroplast Inner Envelope-Thylakoid Membrane Contact Site Proteins"

Evan had a lifetime's supply of misfortune during graduate school, but presented his science like the rigorous scientist he is. See the preprint here!

March 28th, 2025
Dr. Jeremy Brown defends his dissertation, "APPLICATIONS OF ARCHAEAL ANTIOXIDANT COENZYME M AS AN AGRICULTRUAL BIOSTIMULANT"

January 3rd, 2025

We gather at Tiru's Ethiopian to wish Jithesh Vijayan a fond farewell as he departs from the lab to his homeland, India. Left to right, Fangyi Li, Jithesh Vijayan, Huang Li, Joslin Ishwime, Evan LaBrant, Jeremy Brown, Connor Hines, Julie Stone, Rebecca Roston, Asha Kumari.

November 13th, 2024
Fangyi Li defends her dissertation

December 20th, 2024
Dr. Li is hooded by co-mentor James Schnable and myself

April 9th, 2024
Zachery Shomo successfully defended his dissertation

April 8th, 2024
Aline Rodrigues de Queiroz
successfully defends her dissertation

Tea Treat

We celebrate Zach's 1st author paper in Plant Phys!

"All members of the Arabidopsis DGAT and PDAT acyltransferase families operate during high and low temperatures" by Zachery D Shomo, Samira Mahboub, Hathaichanok Vanviratikul, Mason McCormick, et. al.) https://buff.ly/3IhKbjG

And we celebrated with caffeine @ShareTea on February 6th, 2024

A bit of fun rewinding the GC guard column

All Zach Halloween

We all dressed up like Zach. Especially Zach.

And Zach, Zach, Zach, and Zach (i.e., Aline, Cailin, Fangyi, and Zach) made a PCR machine pumpkin complete with a PCR mausoleum for "Forgot to add water", "Two left primers", and "Forgot template DNA" reactions.
October 31st, 2023

Air Clay Crafting Party!

We celebrated Fangyi's comprehensive exam in a joint clay crafting party with the Schnable lab!

October 25th, 2023

Just A Small Party

We celebrated Cailin's comprehensive exam success with a shrinky-dink party. Cailin made "PAGE Gel" earrings!
Friday the 13th, October 2023

Pre-Primed Prodigious Painting Party Photo

Celebrating Comprehensive Exam Success

We emjoyed the day and painted some figurines in a lovely departure from other difficult endeavors. July, 2023

2023 Farewell Party

Joslin Ishwime, Hailey Olberding, and Pacifique Muzigura all move forward to bigger and better things and we wish them the absolute best!

2023 Publication Success!

Co-authors celebrate the success of our recently published review paper. It compares different antioxidants' effects on plants. Left to right: Jithesh Vijayan, Seema Sahay, Katarzyna Glowacka, Rebecca Roston, Jeremy Brown, Julie Stone, Aline Rodrigues de Queiroz

See the review!

End (?) of Pandemic Party

August 2021: We celebrated the departure of REU awardee Elizabeth Balzani and fabulous researcher Tom Ramaekers. They're off to their next stages and we wish them well!

Allison Barnes Graduates! May, 2019

Lab Time with Upward Bound, March 30th 2019

We Escaped!

Februrary 2019: We celebrated being awarded an NSF-CAREER award by going to an escape room. The escape room was bio-terror related, with us ransacking a "lab" to find the cure (NaCl--really?). We escaped with fifteen minutes to spare, but only managed to save Canda from the ravages of the disease...