Huge congrats to Matthew! He’s officially headed to med school! Matthew is so special to our lab. He was our very first lab volunteer and one of our first published researchers and conference presenters. From being a two-time summer fellow to an honors research student and Honors College research assistant—he’s truly done it all. He’s even the go-to person for PCR troubleshooting after running thousands of PCRs and gels with his teammate Harpreet; that’s our Matthew! We could

Ravesh’s research paper, “Ac Transposon Silencing in Maize Endosperm,”  has been selected for the Undergraduate Library Research Award in the Science category at Hofstra University. This well-deserved recognition reflects his strong use of cross-species literature to build hypotheses, adapt protocols for maize, and thoughtfully compare results across systems. Over the course of the project, Ravesh experienced the full research process: from forming an hypothesis (very excitin

Etiha with her poster: clear, organized, and full of great data. Ravesh explaining his research project to Hofstra faculty. Wang with her proud students, Etiha and Ravesh. Etiha shared her research on silencing reprogramming in the germinating embryo. She confirmed the trend across three independent trials and pulled together DNA methylation, small RNA, Ac expression, and RNA-seq data, a really rich story. Ravesh presented his work on silencing in maize endosperm. This tissue

We completed two projects where students developed hypotheses, collected data, wrote and peer-reviewed manuscripts, and presented their work. We published two papers — with everyone as co-authors. You are all amazing!

Congratulations to Brianna Singh, Matthew Bacchus and Aaron Saran! Wishing you all a bright and successful future beyond Hofstra! We will miss you! Aaron: our fearless field-management leader (who started as a volunteer and quickly became the manager)! Exceptionally skilled and experienced, he somehow managed to have the least  troubleshooting in his research project (I would disagree that you get the “real research experience" ...do you want to work on a new project just for