Despite the global and local uncertainty and distress, we have an exciting beginning of the fall session. We have some very good news to share:

We have a new graduate student in our lab: Laura Hjartarson. Laura will be starting her master’s degree under the supervision of Dr. Line Rochefort  and co-supervised by J.C. Villarreal. She’ll be working under our newly funded grant on Restauration of northern mines, with emphasis on the metagenomics of damaged and recovered soils. Laura is interested in lichens and biological crusts. Welcome Laura!

Here is a snippet of our grant goals and objectives: Grant on northern mines press release.

Additionally, two of our doctoral students have successfully presented their research proposal:

Adriel Michel Sierra Pinilla is working on epiphyllous liverwort population genomics, microbial associations and the impact of forest fragmentation on the microbial and plant diversity. Adriel will be also working on cycad biology.

Loïc Soumila  is working under the supervision of Dr. Ilga Porth and co-supervised by J.C. Villarreal. Loïc is working on chemical diversity and herbivory on gymnosperms (conifers and cycads).

They will be posting an update of their research soon!