Past Student/Postdoc Spotlights

Chance Noffsinger is a native of Whitefish, Montana and currently working in the lab of Dr. Cathy Cripps at Montana State University, Bozeman. Chance’s research focuses on assessing the diversity, distribution, and ecology of the genus Russula in the Rocky Mountain alpine zone. Dr. Cathy Cripps and Chance have found over 150 collections of Russula…

Austin Frewert is a native of Otsego County, NY and is currently a MS student at Washington State University, working in the lab of Dr. Tanya Cheeke. His research focuses on investigating the efficacy of mycorrhizal fungi and biochar to restore plant communities on abandoned mine sites. His goal is to determine if co-amending highly…

S. Earl Kang, Jr. is a PhD student at the University of Georgia and is originally from Southern California. He is currently working in the lab of Dr. Michelle Momany. His primary project is understanding conidial germination via transcriptomics based approach. Earl is interested in using the transcript expression profiles to develop diagnostic methods for…

Anat Belasen is a PhD candidate at the University of Michigan, originally from upstate New York. She is currently in Tim James’ lab, where she is researching the effects of forest fragmentation on frog health. Specifically, Anat is examining how frog host genetics change with fragmentation, and whether these genetic changes affect susceptibility to fungal…

Edgar M. Medina Tovar, a native of Bogotá, Colombia, is currently a PhD student in the Department of Biology at Duke University. In Dr. Nicolas E. Buchler’s lab, Edgar studies the zoosporic fungus Spizellomyces, to develop this non-model organism into a genetically tractable system. The zoosporic fungi comprise a group of fungal lineages that have…

Teeratas ‘Tas’ Kijpornyongpan is a PhD student from Bangkok, Thailand, where he completed his undergraduate degree. Tas plans to return to Chulalongkorn University in Thailand, his alma mater, as faculty after he completes his PhD at Purdue University. His primary interests are to explore fungal biodiversity in Thailand, as well as to teach and inspire…

Jorge Ronny Díaz-Valderrama grew up in the small, but historically important city of Cajamarca, Peru, in the Northern Highlands. He is currently a PhD student at Dr. M. Catherine Aime’s lab at the Department of Botany and Plant Pathology, Purdue University. Jorge describes his research as a kind of “enemy-friend” relationship between Moniliophthora roreri and…

Andrew Loyd is originally from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and is a PhD candidate at the University of Florida in Gainesville in the labs of Drs. Jason Smith and Brantlee Richter. He is the recipient of a 2017 MSA Clark T. Rogerson Award. Andrew’s research project focuses on the taxonomy, biology and physiology of the laccate…

Washington native Korena Mafune is a PhD student at the University of Washington in Drs. Daniel and Kristiina Vogt’s lab. Korena researches in the Olympic Penninsula in Washington where she focuses on elucidating the role of adventitious roots and their fungal partners in canopy soils of old-growth Acer macrophyllum (big leaf maple). In these temperate…

A native of Montreal, Emile Gluck-Thaler is a PhD candidate at The Ohio State University in Dr. Jason C. Slot’s lab. Emile is interested in the genetics of fungal ecology. Fungal lifestyles are notoriously difficult to pin down, and often, a single species will be associated with multiple ecological roles. For example, some fungi can…