Time flies when you are having fun! In the first of a series of catch-up posts, I’d like to welcome Noah Luecke to the lab. Noah joined the lab as a Ph.D. student this past fall. In his first year, he has started lots of fun experiments looking at how soil microbes influence plants. We’re looking forward to the results!
The lab recently got together to celebrate the end of the semester and our graduating lab members! Along with Anna Hawkins (Master’s Student), we have some undergraduates that are also leaving: Yash Desi and Tran Mai. Yash and Tran have been with the Crawford Lab since Kerri started at UH, and they will be greatly missed!
To kick off the summer Kerri and Hannah are headed to Michigan to check on the project up north, and we are working on getting the sample processing procedures set for our recent Plant Genomics project.
On Thursday, April 13th, our very own Anna Hawkins defended her Master’s Thesis titled “Effects of water availability on plant coexistence through altered plant-microbe interactions”. In her talk, Anna explained her two experiments regarding plant-soil feedback and water availability. After a round of questioning from her committee, she completed the task marvelously, and passed her examination. We are so excited for her, proud of her, and looking forward to seeing where she goes next armed with her degree of Master of Science!
Keep an eye out for some great new papers in the field of plant-soil feedback and climate change to come as a result of Anna’s strong experiments!
Congratulations to our current and former lab technicians! Our current tech, Michelle Busch, was awarded an honorable mention during this year’s NSF GRFP competition. Our former tech, Heather Slinn was awarded a prestigious fellowship. Must be the luck o’ the Irish on this St. Patrick’s Day! Now to find some green beverages (maybe just green tea) to celebrate…
Congratulations to our very own Huda Khan, who presented on our Texas Sea Grant Restoration Project at the Houston Premedical Academy Symposium! As we began to gear up for the new semester, Huda was able to put an amazing presentation together and present on the impacts that microbes have on dune restoration efforts. She stood out at the medical school as the only student presenting an ecology project. We went to our project site at the University of Houston Coastal Center and did preliminary data collection to see what impacts microbes have had since our planting in August. So far the results are looking interesting, and we will begin to do more intensive data collecting once the plants begin to grow again in the spring, so stay tuned!
From our family to yours, we wish you all a very Happy Holiday season, and an even happier New Year! 
In addition to Kerri’s interview with Houston Public Media for UH Moments, lab members were featured in a video! Michelle (lab tech), Anna (graduate student), and Sandy (undergraduate research assistant) were asked to sample some techniques that the lab uses while Dr. Crawford talks about the Dune Restoration Project.
It has been about a month since our last update, and a lot has happened in the meantime!
Our graduate student Anna Hawkins presented her new and improved poster at the University of Houston’s Annual Graduate Student Symposium. Anna presented data from her first experiment for her graduate degree in the lab. Her project explored how different watering conditions can impact the relationship between plants and microbial communities. Nice work, Anna!
The lab worked really hard in conjunction with Dr. Michelle Afkhami at the University of Miami to set up a preliminary project looking at how arbuscular mycorrhizal microbes can impact competition among different genotypes of Medicago trunculata.
And as a final update, Kerri was interviewed by the Houson Public Media station for their program called “UH Moments“, a weekly podcast that discusses novel research, unique programs, and successes of the university. Information on Kerri’s interview was posted in both the Natural Science and Mathematics site and the Biology and Biochemistry website.
Please check back again soon as we continue to make strides with our research in the lab!
Congratulations to Tran Mai who successfully defended her senior honors thesis yesterday! Tran’s thesis was called “Effects of nematodes on plant community diversity and microbial symbiosis”, and studied how nematodes directly and indirectly impact plant biomass. We are extremely proud of the work she has done for her thesis in our lab.
Congratulations to Tran Mai, who presented her poster on her Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) project! Tran looked at how nemotodes impact prairie plant diversity. This work will be the basis for her senior honors thesis, which she defends later this month. Tran worked very hard to complete her project, and we are so proud of her!
Tran with Kerri, fellow undergraduates Yash and Carlos, and lab tech Michelle.