Awards & Honors

Congratulations to Puja Bajracharya, a PhD student in Dr.

Dr. Dylan Schultz successfully defended his thesis on 11/21/25 titled, " Genotypic and phenotypic exploration of Cardinium hertigii-induced reproductive manipulation of Encarsia parasitoid wasps".

Congratulations to Dr. Abesh Bera on a successful PhD defense!

Congratulations to Dr. Logan Ott on a successful PhD defense!

Zackry Stevenson received supplemental funding from the NSF in support of an internship at the United States Geological Survey (USGS) to distinguish between mercury mobilized during recent wildfires and historical mining activities to determine th

Congratulations to Zackry Stevenson and Michelle Chamberlain of the Swanner lab for both receiving grants from the Itasca Biological Research Station’s Director’s Fellowship and John Tester Graduate Research Fund for their research in Deming

Congratulations to Dr. Kruttika S. Phadke on recieving the Iowa State University Graduate College Research Excellence Award!

Congratulations to Dr. Kruttika S. Phadke on her successful defense!

First year Microbiology Ph.D. student Binayak Raj Pandey attended the finals of the 2023 Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition organized by the Graduate College on November 9, 2023.

Hannah Watkins was awarded 1st Place Graduate Oral Presentation at the 83rd annual meeting of the American Society of Microbiology North Central Branch held at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse (November 2-3).

Congratulations to the Boury lab on being awarded multiple National Science Foundation grants! Details on the grants are outlined below:

Marissa Roghair Stroud recently received a United States Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture (USDA-NIFA) Predoctoral Fellowship! Marissa is studying the genetics of maize microbiome formation in the lab of Dr.

Dr. Melha Mellata and her lab's research on chicken probiotic development was recently featured in an article in the Fall 2023 edition of the Iowa Stater magazine. 

Michelle Chamberlain was recently awarded NASA’s Future Investigators in Earth Space Science and Technology (FINESST) grant to support her PhD work.