The microbiome is the collection of all microorganisms that inhabit an environment.  

Our lab applies a variety of techniques, including high-throughput sequencing approaches, to understand how the manipulation of environmental microbiomes affects soil function and plant growth.

In particular, we are interested in:
  • The impacts of unintentional human modification of microbiomes on the function of agricultural and ecological systems.
  • The extent to which microbiomes can be purposefully modified in different biotic and abiotic contexts.
  • Competition between complex microbial assemblages. 
​Recent News
November 2022: Congratulations to Dr. Laura Kaminsky for an outstanding thesis and defense! The longest standing member of our group is moving on to a postdoc at the Boyce Thompson Institute with Dr. Maria Harrison's group.
October 2022: Suzanne Fleishman published an important perspective on the varied methods used to assess rhizosphere microbiomes in Environmental Microbiome. Congrats Suzanne!
September 2022: Sarah Richards earned 2nd in the poster competition at the International Phytobiomes Conference in Denver. Congrats Sarah!
September 2022: Caylon just published an exciting paper in Functional Ecology, showing differences in bacterial adaptation in new soils based on taxon and soil type. Congrats Caylon!
August 2022: Sarah and Suzanne received travel grants from the International Phytobiomes Conference. Congrats Sarah and Suzanne!
August 2022: Laura's latest paper, published in Applied Soil Ecology, validates a new primer set for Priestia megaterium and shows the unpredictable survival of commercial products across soil types. Link here. Congrats Laura!
July 2022: Congrats to Will for winning an oral presentation award at the International Symposium on Physiological Processes in Roots of Woody Plants! Although Will is now at Cornell, he was presenting our EMSL-funded work on metabolite production across root orders and tree species.
June 2022: Welcome to Hanh Tran! Hanh will be joining our group as a research technologist through December and is co-supervised by Emily Davenport.
June 2022: Jeremy published his first article in Molecular Ecology. Congratulations Jeremy!
June 2022: Congrats to Ryan for winning a poster award at the Changing Microbiomes Symposium!
May 2022: Happy to share that the lab will be moving to the University of Toronto - Scarborough in January 2023. Appreciate all the support from students, staff, and colleagues, whose lives I'm unfortunately disrupting. Have had the best imaginable team at Penn State and only have a career because of them!
May 2022: Congrats to Laura for receiving an ISME travel grant!
April 2022: Will just published an article on active microbial dispersal in ISME Communications. Congratulations Will!
March 2022: Will has started a new position in the School of Integrative Plant Sciences at Cornell University. Congratulations Will!
March 2022: Miranda passed her MS defense for the Ecology program. Congratulations Miranda!
February 2022: Congratulations to Laura for winning the university-level dissertation award! Huge achievement!!
December 2021: Welcome back to Ryan Trexler! I will be co-advising Ryan's Ph.D. program, along with his primary advisor Estelle Couradeau.
October 2021: Laura just received the College of Agricultural Sciences Outstanding Dissertation Award!  Congratulations Laura!!
October 2021: Thanks to Will, this last piece of my postdoctoral work has finally been published in New Phytologist. Congratulations Will!  And thank you to some great collaborators from Cornell.
September 2021: We are excited to welcome Vedha Viddam and Cullen Wilson to the group! Vedha and Cullen will be working with Caylon on a project he received funding for from the British Ecological Society.
September 2021: Jeremy won the FFAR Lightning Talk Competition. Congratulations Jeremy!
July 2021: Jeremy successfully passed his Comprehensive Exam in Bioinformatics and Genomics. Congratulations Jeremy!
July 2021: Lily and Sean just joined the lab officially.  Welcome!
June 2021: Caylon successfully passed his Comprehensive Exam in Ecology. Congratulations Caylon!
May 2021: Will led a Perspective in Trends in Biotechnology on the role of dispersal in the success of microbial inoculants.  Congratulations Will!
May 2021: Caylon was awarded a Small Research Grant from the British Ecological Society. Congratulations Caylon!
April 2021: Lily Cao has accepted an offer to join our group and Michela Centinari's group as a Master's student this Fall. Welcome Lily!!
April 2021: Will and Caylon's article is published in Communications Biology. Collaboration with labs of Michela Centinari and Dave Eissenstat. Congratulations Will and Caylon!
April 2021: Finally published this last paper from my first postdoc (impact of hydrocarbon substrate richness on microbiome characteristics) in Applied Soil Ecology, thanks to amazing help from Nina Camillone and others: see here!
April 2021: Sarah successfully passed her Qualifying Exam. Congratulations Sarah!
April 2021: Great Extension articles on understanding and managing microbes in organic systems, put together with Laura, and lab collaborators Sarah Isbell, Suzanne Fleishman, Mara Cloutier, and Kristy Borelli. See here and here!
February 2021: Former lab member Rondy Malik was honored as a Rising Star on Cell Mentor's list of '1,000 Inspiring Black Scientists in America'. Congratulations Rondy!
February 2021: Caylon's first article published in Plant and Soil, through a great collaboration with the labs of Michela Centinari and Dave Eissenstat. Congratulations Caylon!
January 2021: Nice article in Lancaster Farming on a talk given by Laura, Adrian Galbraith-Paul, and me at the annual Pasa Sustainable Agriculture Conference. See here!
January 2021: Nice interview with TRaCE McGill, which let me talk about my professional journey. Thanks to Dongyun for the invitation!

See older news in the news archive.