Congratulations Helen & Gillyan, our Class of 2021!

Congratulations to Helen Chang and Gillyan Valencia on graduation! Thank you for sticking by our lab during the pandemic and returning, even momentarily. We will miss you so much! Extra thanks and congratulations to Helen for finishing an URCA project in the middle of the pandemic and graduating with distinction in the major! Your poster is amazing and your talk was so touching. Great job and thank you.

Helen's abstract: Foliar fungal endophytes can be found in many plants, where they play various symbiotic roles. Lophodermium is one type of fungal endophyte associated with pines (genus Pinus). Unknown specimens of Lophodermium are discovered frequently, and it is important to determine whether these specimens are new species or species that have been previously documented by other researchers. In this study, we explored the possibility of using a sample collected by Oono and Salas Lizana (PI and collaborator) from China as a neotype for a previously described species, Lophodermium guangxiense, by confirming morphological similarities and creating an ITS phylogeny (gene sequencing) for the “new” species.