As we close out the end of a busy summer, the Sparks lab is gearing up for a great school year.  In June we celebrated the first birthday of the Sparks lab and had a great gathering of friends and collaborators. We are all excited to see what this second year brings.

First lab news is of departures and arrivals.  We said farewell to our summer undergraduates a few weeks ago, as well as Hyeon-Hye Norikane who was instrumental to helping get the lab up and running.  We were also able to welcome Noah Ouslander as a lab tech. Noah worked in the lab as an undergraduate for the past year and we’re excited to have him working full-time. Another new addition is Sarah Blizard, who joins us as a Master’s student after working as a lab technician for the past few years.  We are so excited for the future of the Sparks lab!

Other lab news involves grant funding! We’ve been fortunate enough to receive seed grant funding for our research from NASA, the University of Delaware Research Foundation, and the Delaware Biosciences CAT program.  In addition, in collaboration with Dr. Christophe Pradal, we were awarded a Thomas Jefferson Fund award to promote US-French collaborations. Funding includes support for a 1-month stay for PhD student Lindsay Erndwein in Montpellier!  Lastly, in collaboration with Dr. Ullas Pedmale, we received a NSF grant (#1755355) to look at the Mechanisms of Light Control of Root Growth. We are beyond grateful for the support of these funding agencies and can’t wait to see the results from these projects.

Other than that we are collecting and processing data. We hope to have our first research publications out early next year, so stay tuned… This promises to be a busy Fall with students taking classes and Dr. Sparks teaching Plant Development and Departmental Seminar. More updates soon!  Hope everyone has a great semester!