Kerri Crawford, Ph.D. | Associate Professor
Kerri is broadly interested in all things plants and microbes. Outside of science, you can find her reading, cooking, drinking tea, and eating at all the amazing restaurants in Houston.
Email: kmcrawford3@uh.edu Phone: 1.713.743.8948 Office: SR2 242F Lab: 231
Graduate Students
Elliot Lagueux | M.S. Student
Elliot is interested in microbe-microbe interactions and the ways in which soil microbial communities provide services to their ecosystems. He graduated from the University of New Mexico in 2019 with a B. S. in Biology. Elliot’s prior research includes examining the effects of climate change on soil fungal communities and working with fungal cultures from greenhouse experiments. Elliot’s main interests are fungi, soil community assembly, and the lingering effects of land use on ecosystems. For his graduate work, Elliot is focusing on using interaction networks to examine the relationships between soil fungi within their communities and their importance to community function and stability. When not in the lab, Elliot spends his time playing Dungeons and Dragons and crocheting.
Kayla Zinsmeyer | M.S. Student
Kayla first started working in the lab as an undergraduate in August 2021. She tested whether priority effects that give an invasive species an advantage in becoming established in an ecosystem wane over time as native species adapt to the invasive plant. Now, she is leading projects testing how native microbes aid in dune restorations.
Collin Dice | Ph.D. Student
Collin is joined the Crawford lab in Fall 2023 and is studying plant-microbe interactions and microbial restoration techniques in the Texas Coastal Prairie. He is interested in how prescribed fire alters plant-soil feedbacks, how microbes can be used to control invasive species, and how mutualistic microbes can facilitate grassland succession. In his free time, Collin enjoys video games, running, DnD, and karaoke.
Claudia Franco | Ph.D. Student
Claudia is a Fulbright Fellow from Colombia. She is currently rotating in the lab. She is working on a project that is testing how plant sex in dioecious plant species influences the composition of the plant microbiome.
Post-Bacc Students
Michaela Butler | NSF RaMP Trainee
Michaela is a trainee supported by the NSF-sponsored Research and Mentoring for Post-baccalaureates (RaMP) program at UH. She is co-mentored by Scott Egan at Rice University and Hannah Locke at LaSalle University. She is testing how oak hybridization influences oak microbiomes.
Undergraduate Students
Lucy Blood | Independent Study
Lucy is testing whether lab cultured soil microbiomes produce similar restoration benefits to sand dunes as wild-collected soil microbiomes.
Jonathan Chan | Independent Study / Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship
Jonathan is testing how abiotic stress influences the assembly of plant microbiomes. His work was supported by a SURF in summer 2024.
Arun Parameswaran | Independent Study
Arun is testing whether plant-soil feedbacks are correlated with plant relative abundance in the coastal prairies.
Afridha Thamzeen | Independent Study
Afridha is testing whether fungi isolated from plants growing in low water environments confer plant resistance to drought.