News & Announcements
Distinguished Professor Elizabeth Vierling elected to the Plant, Soil, and Microbial Sciences section of the National Academy of Sciences
Distinguished Professor Elizabeth Vierling elected to the Plant, Soil, and Microbial Sciences section of the National Academy of Sciences
Elizabeth Vierling is Professor at the University of Massachusettes Amherst and Founding Member of the ASPB Legacy Society. She majored in Botany as an undergraduate at the University of Michigan, and got hooked on lab research during a junior year abroad Freiburg, Germany. After a brief year as a technician at Northwestern University, she got a PhD in Biology at the University of Chicago studying the biogenesis of photosystem I. Her postdoc with Joe L. Key at the University of Georgia started her on research on heat shock proteins (HSPs), first focusing on chloroplasts. This work continued in her faculty position in the Biochemistry Department at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona, where work expanded from chloroplast sHSPs to homologues in the cytosol and Hsp101, and then into isolating Arabidopsis thaliana mutants defective in heat tolerance. Projects now encompass not only HSPs, but also how nitric oxide homeostasis impacts growth and fertility and the control of mitochondrial gene expression and respiration. She’s now at the Biochemistry & Molecular Biology Department at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, MA, and writes that “My research includes collaborations across the world that have been wonderfully enriching and expanded my research program in interesting and productive ways.”
Le Liu selected to be a CNS Leadership Fellow
Le Liu selected to be a CNS Leadership Fellow
Le Liu, a Ph.D. student in the Plant Biology program, was selected to be a CNS Leadership Fellow. Le will work with Associate Dean Karen Helfer on initiatives related to career preparation as well as on programming addressing diversity, equity and inclusion.
Plant Biology graduate student Jedaidah Chilufya receives Future Leaders Award
Plant Biology graduate student Jedaidah Chilufya receives Future Leaders Award
The American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) presented Jedaidah Chilufya with the K. Patricia Cross Future Leaders Award. This award recognizes graduate students who show exemplary promise as future leaders of higher education and who are committed to academic innovation in the areas of equity, community engagement, and teaching and learning.
Professor Mafu Receives Award for Research
Professor Mafu Receives Award for Research
Assistant Prof. Sibongile Mafu is a recipient of the RICHARD AND SUSAN SMITH FAMILY FOUNDATION Award for Excellence in Biomedical Research, and she is using the award to help fund her work discovering new plant-derived enzymes to combat antimicrobial resistance and build more resilient plants.
DeAngelis recieves $2.5M in DoE grants to investigate soil microbes' role in carbon cycle
DeAngelis recieves $2.5M in DoE grants to investigate soil microbes' role in carbon cycle
Kristen DeAngelis, Microbiology, was recently was awarded two grants totaling about $2.5 million from the U.S. Department of Energy to advance understanding of the role of soil microbes in feeding carbon into the atmosphere and contributing to global warming. Soils are the largest repository of organic carbon in the terrestrial biosphere and represent an important source of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, DeAngelis says. "Our results could lead to new ideas for curbing the effects of climate change, and one of the implications of this research could be remediating soil to improve its ability to store carbon.”