News

Liana Acevedo-Siaca came to Michigan State University-Department of Energy Plant Research Laboratory, or MSU DOE-PRL in October 2022 as a postdoctoral researcher in David Kramer’s lab. She is now preparing to move across the Atlantic to the Netherlands to start as an Assistant Professor in the Horticulture and Product Physiology Group at Wageningen University in April 2024.

Donghee Hoh, a postdoctoral researcher of the Kramer Lab, was awarded the 2023 American Society of Plant Biologists, or ASPB, Women’s Young Investigator Travel Award. The award paid for travel to the ASPB conference held this August in Savannah, Georgia. Women members of ASPB who are early in their career are eligible for this award.

Leah Johnson is the 2023 recipient of the Kende Award, which acknowledges the best doctoral dissertation in plant sciences at Michigan State University over the last two years.

As potential for biofuel, switchgrass is a perennial plant that is of great interest to researchers. Scientists from the MSU-DOE Plant Research Laboratory Walker lab are looking at how these plants regrow, even when regrowing with less than its usual carbon storage.

In plants, the jasmonate signaling pathway helps plants control their defense responses to environmental stresses. Like the human body, plants respond differently to individual threats. Just as people wouldn’t get a fever due to a sprained ankle, plants deal with harmful elements in particular ways. A study from the Howe lab looks at how plants respond to environmental threats in the correct way.

Binod Basyal is a postdoctoral research associate at the MSU-DOE Plant Research Lab within the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center. He tells us about his research, his background and the importance of optimism in solving complex problems.

Research from the Brandizzi lab, led by postdoc Naveen Sharma, helps to better characterize the role of carbonic anhydrases in Arabidopsis thaliana, focusing on βCA1 and βCA5.

Postdoctoral researcher from the Kramer lab, Liana Acevedo-Siaca, discusses her career thus far and her research interests in a conversation with the Society of Experimental Biology.

Yongsig Kim, a senior research associate in the MSU-DOE Plant Research Laboratory in Michigan State University’s College of Natural Science, is leading MSU’s $1.2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Sustainable Agricultural Systems program in the National Institute of Food and Agriculture that is responsible for reimagining what CEA will look like in a low-carbon world with lower carbon dioxide emissions and growing new vegetation that leaves a low-carbon footprint.

After excelling as a postdoctoral researcher, Keni Cota-Ruiz embarks on an exciting new chapter as he accepts a new position as an assistant professor of biology at Utica University. At Utica, he will be teaching undergraduate courses and labs as well as continuing research he began at the PRL, looking at how the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana responds to an environment where it is exposed to an excess of salt.

Postdoctoral Researcher Amit K. Singh from the MSU-DOE Plant Research Laboratory Ducat lab was awarded the 2023 Postdoctoral Excellence in Research Award from the MSU Office of Postdoctoral Affairs and the Office of the Senior Vice President for Research and Innovation for his research in green biotechnology.

Graduate student Hannah Parks and postdoctoral researcher María Santos Merino have been awarded the 2023 Anton Lang Memorial Awards at a ceremony which took place on Monday, April 24, 2023. This year’s lecture was given by University Distinguished Professor Thomas D. Sharkey from Michigan State University.

Donghee Hoh is the 2022 recipient of the Kende Award, which acknowledges the best doctoral dissertation in plant sciences at Michigan State University over the last two years.

Daipayan Sarkar is a postdoctoral researcher from the Vermaas lab, where his research focus is on fundamental aspects of photosynthesis and its widespread application in sustainability research.

Mauricio Tejera-Nieves is a postdoctoral researcher in the Walker lab and the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center. "Above all, I think the most valuable resource is its people, in my experience everyone is so knowledgeable and willing to collaborate."

The MSU Office of Postdoctoral Affairs and the Office of the Senior Vice President for Research and Innovation annually award the Postdoctoral Excellence in Research Award to two exceptional postdoctoral researchers for their contributions to MSU and the greater research community.

Grad student Philip Engelgau and postdoc Peipei Wang have been awarded the 2022 Anton Lang Memorial Award at a ceremony which took place on Monday, April 25, 2022. This year’s lecture was given by Professor Emeritus Govindjee from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

María Santos Merino, postdoctoral researcher from the Ducat lab at the MSU-DOE Plant Research Laboratory (PRL), is the first to be awarded the Clarence Suelter Endowed Postdoctoral Fellowship Award from the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (BMB).

James Santiago, postdoc in the Sharkey lab at the MSU-DOE Plant Research Laboratory (PRL) has accepted a new position as a R&D plant physiologist at Soli Organic, a culinary herb company based in Harrisonburg, Virginia.

James Santiago, a postdoc in Tom Sharkey’s lab was awarded an internal grant of $88,000 from the PRI for research on heat-sensitivity in tomato anthers and pollen grains using single cell RNA-sequencing.

Dr. Anne Rea, former postdoc in Jianping Hu’s lab at the MSU-DOE Plant Research Laboratory, accepted a position as assistant professor of cell biology at Maryville College in Tennessee.

The Prize recognizes postdoctoral researchers’, “outstanding contributions to plant biology, based on initiative and originality of the research, productivity, and leadership.” In addition, Dr. Xu, a member of the Benning lab, has accepted a tenure-track assistant professorship at the University of Guelph in Canada.

The goal of this year’s fellowship is to provide fellows with real world experience in cloud computing and a good understanding of its capabilities and limitations. 

Du, a former postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Christoph Benning, will start a new position as Assistant Professor in the Department of Molecular Biosciences and Bioengineering at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa, Honolulu.

The aim of the AAAS fellowship program is to connect science with policy makers and to foster a network of science and engineering leaders who understand government and policymaking. Brandon will be placed at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Basic Energy Sciences in Washington D.C..

Tomomi will be working for Charles River Labs, located in Mattawan, while Eric will be with Physicians Toxicology in Kalamazoo.

The former postdoc from the Thomashow lab will join Dr. Wei Li’s lab in Washington D.C. and conduct research to systematically identify critical genes and potential drug targets in brain tumors.