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Our Team

Prof. Ashley Shade, Ph.D.

Prof. Ashley Shade, Ph.D.

Ashley (she/her/hers) is Director of Research with the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. Questions about microbiome resilience keep her awake at night. @ashley17061

Keara Grady

Keara Grady

Keara (she/her/hers) is a research associate and lab manager. She loves the microbes, and makes science happen. She works on the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research microbiome project. @grady_kl

Abby Sulesky-Grieb

Abby Sulesky-Grieb

Abby (she/her/hers) is an MMG Ph.D. graduate student and her research investigates the influences of plant stress on the seed microbiome.

Dr. Marco Mechan Llontop

Dr. Marco Mechan Llontop

Marco (he/him/his) is a Keegstra Post-doctoral fellow with the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center and he studies plant-microbiome interactions in energy sorghum phyllosphere. @MarcoEMechan

Dr. Samuel Barnett

Dr. Samuel Barnett

Sam (he/him/his) is a post-doctoral scholar. His research aims to understand the soil microbiome response to the ongoing Centralia coal seam fire and to microbial functions. @SamBarnett15

Dr. Gian Nico Bernucci

Dr. Gian Nico Bernucci

Nico is a Microbiome Analyst working on bioinformatics and ecological analysis with our Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center projects. He loves coding and fungi! @gimanibe77

You?

You?

We're always excited to welcome new members who are passionate about microbial ecology and evolution, and who share our values of scientific integrity, teamwork and inclusion. See the "join" page for more information.

Off into the world!

Previous ShadeLab Grads and Post-docs

Dr. Sreejata Bandopadhyay

Sreejata was a post-doctoral scholar with the lab. Her research aimed to understand how plants recruit and assemble microbes to the rhizosphere during stress. She is currently a post-doctoral scholar at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

Dr. John Chodkoski

John received his PhD in Microbiology and Molecular Genetics in 2021. His research applied synthetic communities and metabolomics to understand microbial interactions. He is currently employed by the Michigan Public Health Institute as a bioinformatics specialist.

Dr. A. Fina Bintarti

Fina received her PhD. in Crop and Soil Sciences from the Department of Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences in 2022. A Fulbright Scholar, Fina investigated how drought exposure to bean plants impacted its seed microbiome. She is currently a post-doc with the INRAe in France.

Oishi Bagchi, MS

Oishi graduated from the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics with a MS in 2022. Her research investigated the activity dynamics of root and soil microbiomes in response to plant stress signals. She is now a scientist at Eurofins.

Joanna Colovas, MS

Joanna graduated from the Dept. Microbiology and Molecular Genetics with a dual BS/MS degree in 2022. Her research investigated the microbiome of seeds, roots, and rhizosphere of common bean to determine their roles in stress tolerance for the next plant generation. She is currently a CDC-APHL Infectious Disease Fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Lab

Dr. Nejc Stopnisek

Nejc performed post-doctoral research on ShadeLab projects with the Plant Resilience Institute from 2017-2020. He is now a scientist at the National Laboratory of Health, the Environment and Food in Slovenia.

Dr. John Guittar

John performed post-doc research in gut microbiome ecology from 2017-2020; he was co-advised by Prof. Elena Litchman.

Dr. Alan Bowsher

Alan conducted PRI post-doctoral research on plant-microbiome projects with the ShadeLab from 2018-2019, and worked with us as a bioinformatic consultant until July 2020. He is now a data analyst at AutoOwner's Insurance.

Dr. JW Sorensen

Jess is a ShadeLab alum who graduated in 2019 with a PhD from the Microbiology and Molecular Genetics. Jess is currently a post-doc in Joanne Emerson's lab at UC-Davis and is working on viral metagenomics.

Taylor Dunivin, Ph.D.

Taylor is a ShadeLab alum who graduated in 2019 with a PhD from the Microbiology and Molecular Genetics and Environmental and Integrative Toxicological Sciences programs. She is now a biologist with the Environmental Protection Agency.

Dr. Patrick Kearns

Pat performed post-doc research with the PRI on plant resilience studies, and then moved back home to Boston to post-doc with Ben Wolfe at Tufts University. He is now faculty at Bentley University.

Dr Sang Hoon Lee

Sang-Hoon performed post-doc research both on Centralia and GLBRC projects, and currently is a post-doc at Korea University in Seoul, working with Professor Hee-Deung Park.

 Our Global Connections:

 ShadeLab Visiting Scholars

Dr. Keisuke Miyauchi

Keisuke was a visiting scholar in 2021-2022 from the Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Tohoku Gakuin University, Japan.

Prof. Eliana Guedes-Stehling

Prof. Eliana Guedes-Stehling is a professor of microbiology at the University of São Paulo, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences of Ribeirão Preto. She won a FAPESP fellowship to spend her sabbatical with ShadeLab during the 2019-2020 academic year. During that time she learned bioinformatic approaches for targeted gene assembly of antibiotic resistance genes from metagenomes.

Dr. Jian Hu

Dr. Jian Hu is a lecturer in the College of Agro-grassland Science at Nanjing Agricultural University in China. The China Scholarship Council supported him to to spend a year with ShadeLab (2019-2020) to work on biotic stress and plant microbiomes with the GLBRC.

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