As an undergraduate in EBIO, I have had the opportunity to work on a variety of research projects looking at everything from barn swallows to lichens to microbes. I currently work in Dr. Steve Schmidt's lab studying soil microbial communities from around the world. My main focus right now is my honors thesis, classifying the microbial eukaryotic communities in an oasis of the Dry Valleys of Antarctica. To do this I am using DNA sequence data to compare the soil microbial communities within the oasis to those outside of it. Another focus of my research has been looking at the effects of herbicides (primarily glyphosate) on soil microbial communities. My curiosity about the microbial world has grown in this position and I look forward to applying what I have learned from soil communities to understanding human pathogens in graduate school.
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