Erica Harris successfully passed her qualifying exam for her Ph.D. candidacy. She will be developing her research on the monarch butterfly microbiome and its role in disease. This is a collaborative project between our lab and the lab of Jaap de Roode.

The Gerardo lab had a strong representation at the recent Emory Undergraduate Research Symposium. Congrats to Becky, Meera, Brandon and Itai for their efforts.

Meera Patel presenting her research on plant pathogens transmitted by bugs.

Evolutionary biologist, author and science educator Sean Carroll came to visit Emory this week. Several undergraduates and grad students, including our own Erica Harris, had the opportunity to have lunch with him. Thanks for a great visit!

Work on aphid-symbiont-ladybird beetle interactions by former postdoc Jen Kovacs (now at Spelman College) and former undergrad Kelly Costopoulos (now attending medical school) was featured in Entomology Today.

Congratulations to Greg Fricker for receiving highest honors for his undergraduate honors thesis. The many late nights dissecting bugs, which still continue, have paid off.

Justine Garcia defended her Ph.D. thesis today. She gave an excellent talk and then ate pizza and cake. Overall, a pretty good day. Thanks to her family for coming to celebrate.

What she once may have seen as a never ending story is coming to an end. Congratulations!

The Gerardo lab participated in the second annual Atlanta Science Festival this weekend. At the expo, members of the lab cultured 400 plates of Luria Broth agar with members of the Atlanta community. Participants swabbed hands, ear, noses, cell phones and the bottoms of their shoes. Check out mycrobes.org to see what grows.

Graduate student Justine Garcia participated in the University of Michigan’s Early Career Scientists Symposium last weekend. The invitation to speak was quite an honor. Meghan Duffy (U. Mich) sent this picture from the audience.

by Nicole Gerardo

I was fortunate enough to get invited to the University of Arizona to give a talk at the Center of Insect Science along with several other former postdocs of PERT, the Center’s NIH IRACDA postdoctoral program. Other former postdocs in attendance were Alex Wilson, Luciano Matkzin, Jeff Riffell and Armin Moczek

Molly Hunter, Nicole Gerardo, Alex Wilson and Armin Moczek

. What an amazing evening of science!

Congratulations to Stephanie Chiang (now Stephanie Birnbaum), our former lab tech, for her recent marriage to Jeffrey.