It seemed only yesterday that...

August 2024

Nhu received the Buller Medal of the Young Mycologist Award, given for quality, originality, and quantity of research in mycology. The award is given by the International Mycological Association once every 4 years. What an incredible honor to be given this prestigious award!

May 2024

The end of summer can be bittersweet. Christian Fullmer completed his M.S. degree! He will transition to doing soil research with our good collaborator Dr. Tai Maaz. After a short but good stay in the lab, Augie Rodegerts graduated with a B.S. in Botany. Ishwora Dhungana received the MSA Graduate Fellowship, Viviana Gaytan received the UROP Presentation award for traveling and presenting at this summer's MSA meeting, and Luke Amarine received the MSA SPORES mentorship award for new initiates into Mycology.

March 2024

The lab joins an interdisciplinary team of chemists and microbiologists for the next five years to study fungal-bacterial interactions on surface films, supported by the Department of Defense! See the award announcement.

February 2024

Welcome undergrads Augie Rodegerts and Luke Amerine to the lab!

September 2023

Congratulations to Jon Abe, who is first author on a newly published manuscript on the presence of legume nodulating rhizobia on Oʻahu! Jon did this work while he was an undergraduate in the lab, doing his senior thesis and supported by the UROP program.

The lab received a grant from the USDA to use machine learning to connect the soil microbiome to soil health. This is an exciting collaborative project with Dr. Tai Maaz (PI), Drs. Susan Crow, Jonathan Deenik, Mikey Kantar, and Nhu Nguyen as Co-PIs. The Nguyen Lab's contributions to this project will be led by Dr. Giovana Slanzon.

August 2023

Nhu received the prestigious Constantine J. Alexopoulos Prize for Outstanding Early Career Mycologist from the Mycological Society of America! Ishwora also received a student travel award bearing the same name! It allowed her to travel to the meeting and present her work. The award was given at the MSA 2023 Annual Meeting in Flagstaff, AZ.

Dr. Alexopoulos was the PhD advisor to Dr. Meredith Blackwell, Nhu's undergraduate research advisor who got him into doing research with fungi. So Nhu can claim him as his academic grandfather, and one day, Ishwora can call him her academic great grandfather.

May-June 2023

Summer is a time of change in Academia. Undergraduates Makana Ioh, Sophia Lee, and Quinn Moon graduated with their BS degrees. Makana will participate in a post-baccalaureate program at NIH and Quinn will join Tim Jame's lab at the University of Michigan as a PhD student. We wish them the very best!

Newly minted Dr. Wesley Sparagon will officially join the lab as a postdoc. Dr. Caio Pires de Paula César from the Biology Centre of the Czech Academy of Sciences is visiting the lab to learn ways to study fungal-bacterial interactions. And Jacob White, a fungal enthusiast, also joined the lab for the summer.

May 2023

Makana Ioh received the Honors Thesis Prize for her excellent thesis work "Fungal-Bacterial Interactions may lead to suppression of bacterial antibiotic resistance"!

February 2023

We welcome new postdoc Dr. Gaetan Martin to the lab!

September 2022

The lab received a grant from the Department of Energy to study fungal-bacterial interactions in soil! We were featured by UH News, and Nhu was interviewed by Hawaii Public Radio on the project.

August 2022

We start a new fall semester with great news. Makana Ioh returned from her summer undergrad research experience on the mainland. She was awarded an Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP) award from UH Manoa and will start her exciting project this fall.

June 2022

Our collaborative paper on using plant/root phenotyping as a model for undergraduate research education is published. We made the cover of the journal Natural Science Education!

April 2022

Welcome to our latest lab member, Giovana Slanzon! Giovana just completed her PhD and joins the lab study fungal-bacterial interactions in the soil. Welcome Giovana!

March 2022

Welcome to our latest lab member, Laurens Stouthart! Laurens is visiting us from the Netherlands. Welcome Laurens!

August 2021

Welcome to our latest lab member, Karen Parada! Karen joins the lab to start her PhD in fungal-bacterial interactions.
Nhu was promoted to Associate Professor!

February 2021

Nhu joins the NIH COBRE Environmental Microbiome program at UHM as a Research Project Leader. This position comes with funding for the lab to study fungal-bacterial interactions across our broad soil gradients!

January 2021

We start another year with undergrads Andrew Lin and Makana Ioh joining us for exciting research!

August 2020

The new semester starts with exciting additions to the lab. We're excited that Rick Lewis (post-doc), Christian Fullmer (graduate student), and Roxanne main (undergrad) will join the team to dig deep into soil microbial ecology!

June 2020

Congratulations to Ishwora Dhungana for passing her MS Thesis Defense with flying colors!

The lab received two awards from USDA NIFA to run two projects! We will be providing research and technical training opportunities to undergraduate students and we will develop methods to measure soil biodiversity.

May 2020

Congratulations to Jon Abe for receiving the Senior Honors Project Award in natural science category! Each department may only nominate one student whose work is selected among other nominees.

April 2020

Welcome to Christian Fullmer, who will join us in the fall to start his MS graduate program!

March 2020

Lab operations have been reduced to a minimum necessity. Stay safe everyone!

October 2019

Our lab received funding from the Department of Energy to study soil nutrient movement as part of a larger project led by Mary Firestone at UC Berkeley! Part of the project will examine fungal-bacterial interactions.

September 2019

Welcome to Christopher Kim, our newest lab member!

May 2019

Steven passed his thesis defense and won the UH Manoa Graduate Student Organization Merit Award for Research! Congrats, Steven!

April 2019

Jon was awarded the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP) funds to study rhizobia in native and invasive legumes. Congrats, Jon!

February 2019

Ishwora passed her qualifying exam to become a master's candidate. Congrats, Ishwora!

May 2018

Steven passes his qualifying exam to become a master's candidate. Congrats, Steven!

March 2018

Cade Justad-Sandberg and Talyssa Topacio will join the lab as REU students for the summer to learn about using DNA techniques to study biodiversity.

January 2018

Steven Heisey and Ishwora Dhungana join the lab as new graduate students. Welcome, Steven and Ishwora!

August 2016

Nhu sets up at UH and attempted to get the lab running.