A new paper led by Lauren Clance & Randi Cannon on student struggle during the transition for remote learning. Turns out that instructor's support and communication was a strong determining how well students were able to overcome their struggles.  Surprise :).

Grace Sekaya was awarded the inaugural Jaguar Senior Medallion Award this week, which awards outstanding graduate seniors that have made their mark on the South Alabama community both inside and outside the classroom!!

After some major Covid related delays in field work, we have finally got our disturbance experiment setup on Dauphin Island!  We are excited to have our coastal grassland included in the global network!!!

Lab undergrad Grace Sekaya was selected as a prestigious DIRECT (Diversifying Research and Experimental learning in Cancer Training) fellow at Duke University Cancer Institute.  This is an amazing opportunity and a great way to spend her gap year before starting Med School!  We are so proud!

Emily Newman had a dynamite prospectus defense this morning!!  She gave an amazing talk on her thesis linking native dune Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi in the restoration of coastal Alabama dunes.  We are excited to have her advance into candidacy for her MS thesis!!

New paper out in Journal of Microbiology and Biology Education this week that was actually part of our Biology Education Theory & Research course taught to graduate students across Biology, Education, and Marine Sciences.  Graduate students in this course get their first taste of DBER. Fun seeing class products shine!

Some great news this week, we found out that Joshlyn's SURF proposal to measure how native mycorrhizal fungi provide salinity tolerance for Panicum amarum and Taylor's SURF proposal that will explore how ghost crab burrow density change after disturbance and nutrient addition.  Gonna be a fun summer in the FUNGGii Lab filled with some great undergraduate student projects! congrats Joshlyn & Taylor!!!

Darrien was awarded the Donna J. Heinrich Environmental Education Grant by the Gopher Tortoise Council to conduct a community engagement project associated with Gopher Tortoise Day at the Mobile Botanical Gardens on April 23rd. Way to go Darrien!!!

J is up in Birmingham for the Southeastern branch of the American Plant Biologist Society this weekend, while Angela is heading to Vancouver to present 2 talks at the National Association for Research on Science Teaching (NARST).