Since our last post, there have been significant changes to the world. So first, we hope that everyone is staying safe and well!  We are all hanging in there, and Erin couldn’t be more proud of how well the lab has adapted to the work-from-home transition.  We have a weekly coffee hour just to check in and while we miss seeing everyone in person, we are glad to be doing our little part to slow the spread.

The work from home has allows for some exciting new opportunities and our awesome team members continue to shine!

• M.S. student Sarah Blizard was able to present her work in the remote Plantae Seminar Series last week.  If you missed it, the talk is available on YouTube here. Although her last experiments were cut short due to the covid19 pandemic, Sarah made great progress and is set to defend her Master’s in June.
• PhD student Lindsay Erndwein has been busy working on a paper resubmission, so look out for that to be posted on bioRxiv soon. She was also award a scholarship from the National Corn Growers Association to support her work on how plant herbivory affects biomechanics. Congratulations to Lindsay!

Other than that we are sorting through mountains of data we have collected on the contribution of brace roots to plant biomechanics the past couple of years.  We are working to synthesize this data for a deeper understanding of lodging-resistance and hope to be able to inform future plant improvement!  Be on the look out for some exciting new data from our lab soon.

In more good news, we are welcoming Dr. Ashley Henderson to the lab as a postdoc starting June 1st.  Ashley just finished her PhD at West Virginia University with Dr. Jennifer Hawkins.  Ashley brings a wealth of experience in sorghum, genetics and abiotic stress tolerance to the lab, and we are so excited for her to join the team. She will be working to expand our understanding of brace roots from maize to sorghum!

We look forward to seeing you all in the near future!