Heather is off to Germany to visit our collaborator Prof. Berit Ebert, at Ruhr University Bochum in Germany. Heather’s trip is generously sponsored by a RUB Visiting International Professor award from the RUB Research School. On May 15, she will present a research seminar to the Department for Biology and Biotechnology and on May 22, she will give a seminar specifically for students.
The McFarLab welcomes seven summer-term undergraduate students to the lab this week:
Evan Berthelot will continue his previous work as a CSB499 student.
Francesca Medina joins the lab as a new work-study student.
Eskandar Mohammad will continue his CSB498 work as a UTEA scholarship winner.
Gaeun Shin joins the lab as a CSB498 student.
Demitra Tsoukalas joins the lab as a new work-study student.
Tony Xie joins the group as a BCB330 student.
Shengjie Xu joins the lab as a CSB498 student.
Yu completed an important degree milestone today as he defended his PhD proposal. Congratulations, Yu!
Eskandar has been awarded a prestigious University of Toronto Excellence Award and a Department of Cell & Systems Biology Undergraduate Research Award to continue his research over the summer term. He has accepted the UTEA so that he can work full-time on his project. Congratulations, Eskandar!
This afternoon is the CSB Undergraduate Research Day! Everyone is welcome and you can see poster presentations from our CSB498 students: Evan, Eskandar, Rylan, and Vicky.
Update: CSB498 student Evan Berthelot won an F. Michael Barrett prize for his poster. Congratulations, Evan!
New advancements are constantly refining what we know, and what remains unknown, about plant cell wall synthesis. Heather’s new article in the Journal of Experimental Botany “Open questions in plant cell wall synthesis” highlights recent findings and the questions that remain unanswered about cell wall synthesis. This article is part of the Centenary Review Collection, a collection of Darwin Reviews that have been commissioned as part of the celebrations surrounding the 100th anniversary of the Society of Experimental Biology.
https://doi.org/10.1093/jxb/erad110
Free access is temporarily provided by the journal here.
Heather is returning to her hometown as the seminar speaker at Queen’s University’s Department of Biology seminar speaker for this week. She will present about some of the lab’s ongoing work on how changes to cell wall synthesis can also result in changes to Golgi structure and function.
Editorial on values-driven lab leadership published in JXB Following an exciting workshop at ICAR 2021 “Running a Research Group in the Next Generation” co-hosted by Heather and Jacqueline Monaghan from Queen’s University and featuring Siobhan Brady, Liz Haswell, and Sonali Roy, we have compiled the reflections and resources from this workshop into a short article for Journal of Experimental Botany with additional insights from Benjamin Schwessinger.
This article is aimed at early career researchers and anyone else considering their leadership. We elaborate on ideas emerging from the workshop that we hope will allow current and future group leaders to reflect upon and adjust to the rapidly evolving nature of the academic scientific enterprise.
https://doi.org/10.1093/jxb/erac407
Update: Our article has been highlighted on Plantae, the blog from the American Society of Plant Biologists.
Today, Carlo did a wonderful job with his PhD proposal exam. Congratulations, Carlo!
Many members of the McFarLab gave excellent presentations at the Eastern Regional Meeting of the Canadian Society of Plant Biologists today and Jenny was awarded one of the prizes for best talk. Congratulations, Jenny!
Update: Jenny’s award has been highlighted on the CSB website.