Author: etmahon

Graduate Student Spotlight-Nathan Kiel

Nathan is currently a PhD student in the Turner lab. Nathan plans to complete the degree this spring, check out his spotlight profile and learn more about Nathan and his experience at UW–Madison. 1) Explain your research so that your grandparent or a 5-year-old would understand it. I study how forests are changing with a …

These tomatoes are out of this world…or they will be soon

By sending tomato plants to the International Space Station, UW researchers hope to better understand how plants grow without gravity and whether there are ways to help plants cope with the stressors involved with growing in space flight. Read the full article at: https://news.wisc.edu/these-tomatoes-are-out-of-this-world-or-they-will-be-soon/

Death Cap Mushroom’s invasion success may be linked to newly documented variability of toxin genes

The discovery could help researchers better understand how the toxic fungus is successfully invading California and open the door for new drug discovery pathways.  Read the full article at: https://news.wisc.edu/death-cap-mushrooms-invasion-success-may-be-linked-to-newly-documented-variability-of-toxin-genes/

Student Perspectives: Ashley Cheung

By: Ashley Cheung This past April, I was a panelist at the Wisconsin Energy Institute’s 2023 Climate Teach-In. Students, faculty and community members joined at Memorial Union to learn from each other about climate solutions. We taught each other about everything from campus food recovery efforts to global temperature monitoring programs. I contributed what I …

Sowing Interest in Botany at Science Expeditions

The Gilroy, Maeda, and Spalding labs participated in the 2023 campus-wide Science Expeditions outreach event on April 16. They joined five other plant cell and molecular biology labs from different UW departments to create a row of eight substations where families with children peered through microscopes, painted with plant pigments, or sowed seeds in a …

Launching mentorship appreciation

The Botany and Conservation Biology Newsletter interviews Mark Connolly, Curriculum & Graduate Program Coordinator, about the department’s mentor appreciation initiative: Who are you? For a little more than a year now, I’ve been the Curriculum and Graduate Program Coordinator for the Department of Botany. Before that, I was an NSF-funded researcher who studied STEM education …

Botany Club is back!

Starting in October of 2022, a group of students, led by graduating botany major, Amanda Shalit, revitalized the Undergraduate Botany Club. Since October, the Botany Club has hosted a plethora of events. The first meeting was a plant trivia night, followed by a trip to the Olbrich Botanical Gardens, and a Cocoa & Cram movie and study night. In the spring semester, Botany Club has …

Botany professor first to receive new Rebecca Blank Professorship

Professor of Botany Katherine McCulloh will hold the inaugural appointment created to honor Blank’s leadership and service and to celebrate recently tenured faculty who mirror her commitment to UW–Madison. Read the full article at: https://news.wisc.edu/botany-professor-first-to-receive-new-rebecca-blank-professorship/