Past Student/Postdoc Spotlights

Carolina Piña Páez grew up in Hermosillo, Sonora, México. She is currently doing research on the Madrean Sky Islands of Arizona and Mexico. Her advisor is Joey Spatafora.  Tell us about your project!  My project combines fieldwork and laboratory experiments to unravel past climate change cycles’ effects on Rhizopogon and their hosts (Pinaceae) in the Madrean Sky…

Kirsten Gotting is from Portland, Oregon. She is doing her PhD at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her current advisor is Cameron Currie. Tell us about your project! I’m really interested in evolution and diversification, and how symbiosis plays a role in these processes. The system I work on is the fungus-growing ant-microbe symbiosis. More specifically,…

Savannah Gentry grew up in Port Neches (Texas) and Klamath Falls (Oregon). She is currently doing research at Madison, Wisconsin with Anne Pringle. Tell us about your project! I work with fungal pathogens of wildlife and have found that two pathogens responsible for infectious diseases in snakes and lizards (snake fungal disease and yellow fungal…

Alden Dirks is from Coatesville, Pennsylvania. He is currently doing research with Dr. Tim James in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Tell us about your project! Gyromitrin is an acute toxin and potent carcinogen that is found in some mushrooms, particularly false morel mushrooms (Gyromitra spp.). The product of gyromitrin metabolism, monomethylhydrazine, is infamous for also being…

Gillian Bergmann is from Portland, Oregon. She received her Bachelor’s degree from Oregon State University in the spring of 2019, and now works as a faculty research assistant (lab technician) for Dr. Posy Busby and Dr. Jared LeBoldus in OSU’s Department of Botany and Plant Pathology. Tell us about your project I am currently working…

Sara Getson hails originally from State College, Pennsylvania where she received bachelor’s degrees in Plant Science and French Language. She is currently a master’s student in her final year studying under Dr. Mary Hausbeck at Michigan State University. Tell us about your project! So, I am really excited to be working on two different crops;…

Regina Bledsoe grew up in a small town on the South Louisiana Gulf Coast. She is currently doing her research at East Carolina University Greenville, NC. Tell us about your project! While soil may seem lifeless to most, below-ground plant roots, fungi, and bacteria (and other organisms) are living life to the fullest below the surface.…

Xiomy is a Master’s student that grew up in Pucallpa, Peru. She is currently doing her research at Western Illinois University with the guidance of Dr. Andrea Porras-Alfaro. Tell us about your project! My project focuses on the description of a new fungus within Pleosporales using multi-locus sequencing and microscopy, then I will try to…

Tania Kurbessoian is a PhD student that grew up in Los Angeles, California. She is currently doing her research at the University of California-Riverside with the guidance of her advisor Dr. Jason Stajich. Tell us about your project! Currently I am looking into studying fungi in Desert Biocrusts. Biocrusts (Biological Soil Crusts) are a complex…

Rebecca Shay is a PhD student at Michigan State University and is originally from Grand Haven, Michigan. She is currently working in the lab of Dr. Frances Trail. Her primary project focuses on understanding early infection responses of Fusarium graminearum in barley. Specifically, one of her projects looks at a natural defense response in barley…