Christina Stonoha, PB PhD in Dr. Dong Wang's lab, received an award from the NSF to participate in the East Asia and Pacific Summer Institutes from June to August.  Christina wrote, "It was an extremely rewarding and humbling experience. I got valuable research experience and the opportunity to practice various methods, such as how to inoculate plants with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, which I wanted to do as a part of my dissertation but was previously unable to because I lacked the expertise. I also learned how to use laser capture microdissection to isolate specific tissues within the root. This was not part of my own project, but I gained knowledge of this technique that I may not have received otherwise. I also gained a deeper understanding of what it means to communicate across cultures.

There was absolutely a learning curve and being unable to speak any Chinese made even simple interactions especially difficult.  Thankfully there was an amazing scientist working in the lab, and she was very willing to hold my hand and explain everything to me. It was at her house where I learned I was continually making a moderate cultural misstep. In short, I was saying “thank you” and “I’m sorry” way too much. I was told that these are phrases reserved mostly for strangers; good friends will already know your intentions and therefore there is no reason to say these things. While I felt bad about this faux pas, I was also flattered that I was considered a good friend. I found that I needed to be upfront about my cultural ignorance and be completely open to criticism. I think that this strategy helped me learn as much as I could about the country and culture in which I was a guest and, ultimately, I was able to get a lot of research done because I had a good rapport with my lab mates."  

Pubudu Handakumbura, postdoc in the Bartlett Lab, won the best postdoc poster award at the Northeast Regional American Society of Plant Biologists (NEASPB) meeting held in April 2015.  Pubudu received her PhD in 2014, with her dissertation "Understanding the transcriptional regulation of secondary cell wall biosynthesis in the model grass Brachypodium distachyon" in the Hazen Lab. She and her family recently moved across the country where she has a postdoc position at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.