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  • Bruns lab members, Mary Ann and Mara, and collaborators, Arnab Bhowmik and Terry Bell publish a perspectives article discussing how innovative technologies can be integrated with high-throughput sequencing to better understand nitrogen cycling dynamics in agricultural soils

 

  • Bruns lab welcomes Devyn McPheeters, a Master’s student studying how soil health has changed in our sustainable dairy croppings project we are involved in.

 

  • Mary Ann is nominated to be on the ASM Council on Microbial Sciences. Click here if you would like to know more about the Council and their objectives.

 

  • Mara receives an USDA-NIFA Pre-doctoral Fellowship where she will be working toward “Making sense of the microbiome for farmers’ sake”. Her fellowship is an integrated project that incorporates a research and extension component and will be working with Dr. Bruns and Dr. Kristy Borrelli to fulfill her objectives.

 

  • Emily Ball sets thesis defense date of March 13th at 3pm where she will be discussing her research on “Effects of Management on Selected Soil Properties and Nitrous Oxide Fluxes in Dairy Cropping Systems”

 

  • Mara Cloutier spearheads the data analysis working group (DAWG) to train graduate students and post docs on bioinformatics tools and to provide a platform for students and post docs to share their bioinformatic knowledge through the form of workshops.

 

  • Congrats to Tarik Acevedo on his successful completion of his qualifying exams in Ecology and Biogeochemistry!

 

  • Graduate student, Mara Cloutier, successfully passed her comprehensive exams May 2018!

 

  • Bruns lab welcomes new PhD student in Soil Science, Nina Camillone! Nina is part of the first ever graduate microbiome cohort at Penn State.

 

  • Graduate student, Mara Cloutier, receives a graduate student research grant from the Northeast Sustainable Agriculture, Research, and Education program to study microbial N dynamics in a 40-year old long-term tillage experiment.

 

  • Postdoc Arnab Bhowmik acquires job as Assistant Professor at NC Agricultural & Technical University in Greensboro, NC. He will start his new position August, 2018.

 

  • PhD candidate Mara Cloutier receives the prestigious 2018 Clark Soil Biology Graduate Student Scholarship from Soil Science Society of America. Congrats Mara we are proud of you!

 

  • Postdoc Arnab Bhowmik  represents Penn State at the USA Science and Engineering festival during April 2018. In this outreach activity he  presented hands on projects on the importance of soil microorganism to sustain life on earth!

 

  • Bruns lab gets a $288K USDA NIFA-AFRI funding to look into nitrous oxide consumption in soils under adaptive management to climate change.

 

  • Emily Ball receives a travel grant to attend the Congressional Visits day March 7-8th through the Soil Science Society of America. Emily will be talking to local congressmen about science related issues focusing on PA agriculture.

 

  • Bruns lab new publication- Underexplored microbial metabolisms for enhanced nutrient recycling in agricultural soils. AIMS Microbiology, 2017, 3(4): 826-845. doi: 10.3934/microbiol.2017.4.826  (Highlighted in top 10 articles with highest usage)

 

  • New graduate student, Tarik Acevado-Gonzalez, receives the prestigious National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship! Only ~ 15% of applicants were awarded the Fellowship.

 

  • Master’s student, Emily Ball, receives $500 National Travel Award through Agricultural Sciences at Penn State to present research at the 2017 annual Soil Science Society of America Conference!

 

  • Undergraduate researcher Ana Turosky receives distinguished research grant, Rodney A. Erickson Discovery Grant, to study the effects of glyphosate on microbial diversity in soils.