Twenty-five students and researchers awarded exclusive on-campus instruction on omics data
Hands-on instruction is part of five-day EMSL Summer School
* Updated July 21, 2023
Twenty-five PhD students and postdoctoral researchers from around the country were chosen to attend exclusive tutorial sessions at the 2023 EMSL Summer School.
These awardees were selected through a competitive application process and will participate in hands-on instruction with world-class researchers from July 24 to July 28 on the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) campus in Richland, Washington. The daily afternoon sessions will follow the free, virtual sessions that are open to the public. Instruction will focus on the fundamentals and complexities of omics data, aligning with this year’s Summer School theme, “Demystifying Multiomics.”
“We are thrilled to be hosting such an impressive cohort of students for the 2023 Summer School program,” said Javier E. Flores, a statistician with PNNL and one of this year’s Summer School organizers. “While this experience is meant to provide participants with the opportunity to learn from some of PNNL’s world-class scientists, it also provides us the opportunity to meet with and play a small part in fostering the development of the next generation of scientists—some of whom may be future colleagues!”
This group of students will receive tutorials on data analysis and visualization from instructors like Flores and Lisa Bramer, who is also a Summer School organizer and PNNL data scientist.
“Omics data are complex, and each are characterized by biological and statistical attributes that influence how they should be analyzed,” Bramer explained. “Through completing our Summer School curriculum, our hope is that students will better understand the different analytic considerations inherent to each ‘omic and be well equipped to implement some of the tools used for their analysis. Our goal is to empower students with the skills necessary to apply a learned data analytic mindset and skillset toward their own data so that they may fulfill their current and future research goals.”
The 2023 Summer School awardees include:
Afaf Abdelrahim
The Ohio State University
Research area: Microbial ecology
Amo Aduragbemi
University of Georgia
Research area: Harnessing genetics and bioinformatics to understand the role of beneficial endophytes with plants, how plants control these interactions, and enhancements for improving crop production
Fuad Ale Enriquez
Washington State University
Research area: Adaptive laboratory evolution to improve microbial production from archaea
Emma Palmer
The University of Texas at Austin
Research area: Biogeochemistry. Specific focus: how natural, mixed communities of bacteria use extracellular electron shuttles to reduce iron minerals in sediment, soil, and water systems and how this reduced iron might subsequently degrade contaminants
Chelsea St. Germain
Idaho National Laboratory
Research area: Biofuel logistics. Main project analyzes the changes in algal metabolism and the microbial community in response to different treatments after harvesting
Kameron Richardson
University of Idaho
Research area: Soil microbial ecology
Akorede Seriki
University of Idaho
Research area: Evolutionary and microbiology, with a focus on the genotypic and phenotypic basis of formaldehyde stress response in bacteria
Anjali Kumari
Joint School of Nanoscience and Nanoengineering
Research area: Role of extracellular vesicles in complex cellular communication
Lennel Camuy-Velez
North Dakota State University, Department of Microbiological Sciences
Research areas: Microbial ecology, soil–plant–microbe interactions, and plant invasion
Camila Gonzalez Arango
Penn State University
Research area: integrating microbial community behavior with a process model
Kalpana Kukreja
University of Texas at El Paso
Research areas: Dryland critical zone, phosphorus cycling, soil biogeochemistry, metabolomics
Hui Li
Tennessee State University
Research area: Bacterial functional genomics analyses using genome/metagenome sequencing; plant resistance mechanisms to abiotic stresses, such as aluminum toxicity, heat, and drought through multi-omics approaches
Miriam Hernandez-Romero
Los Alamos National Laboratory
Research Area: Plant and algal molecular biology
Kimberley S. Ndlovu
The Ohio State University
Research area: The cervicovaginal microbiome of pregnant people living with HIV and the infant gut microbiome
Jen Kane
West Virginia University’s Davis College of Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Design
Research area: Soil microbial ecology
Juan Santana
University of British Columbia, Hallam Lab
Research area: Microbial ecology of anaerobic digestion systems
Beth Davenport
University of British Columbia
Research area: Synthetic biology, where she develops biotechnologies for environmental pollution remediation
Marion Urvoy
The Ohio State University
Research areas: Marine microbiology and ecology
Priscilla Farani
University of Texas at El Paso
Research area: Neglected tropical diseases, focusing on parasitical diseases, specifically Chagas disease
Paige Hansen
Colorado State University, Soil and Crop Sciences
Research area: Identifying microbial traits that drive the formation of two different fractions of soil organic carbon—particulate and mineral-associated organic carbon
Eva Ottum
The University of California Riverside, Chemical and Environmental Engineering Department
Research area: Bioengineering
Jessica Rush
University of Colorado Boulder, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences
Research area: Biogeochemistry and redox cycling in northern peatlands
Priscilla Kini
University of Maryland Eastern Shore
Research area: Understanding the molecular processes that underlie the obesogenic action of organophosphorus insecticides, such as chlorpyrifos, as well as how the interaction between exposure to chlorpyrifos and genetic variation contributes to obesity through epigenetic mechanisms
Teresa Mccarrell 
University of Minnesota
Research area: ecology and physiology of thermophilic cyanobacteria in the hot springs of Yellowstone National Park
Princess Pinamang
Georgia Institute of Technology
Research area: Soil microbial ecology