Graduate students currently enrolled at MSU can apply for single semester fellowships (Summer, Fall or Spring) to develop or support research in association with the KBS LTER Program. If you are interested in applying for a fellowship, please see our Graduate Fellowships FAQ. Previous awardees are presented below.
Semester Fellowships
2024-2025
- DeShae Dillard (Entomology) – Establishing pest and beneficial arthropod monitoring in the LTAR Aspirational Cropping System Experiment
- Rachel Drobnak (Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences) – Exploring shifts in soil food webs and nitrogen cycling in response to prairie strip management
- Zohre Eshghdoostkhatami (Civil and Environmental Engineering) – Identification of methanotrophs in agricultural soils capable of carbon uptake from trichloroethene
- Cynthia Fiser (Entomology) – Understanding the barriers to adoption of prairie strips on rural Michigan farms
- Xin Lan (Geography, Environment, and Spatial Sciences) – Optimizing agricultural economic outputs through strategic reservoir water storage and trading among states in the U.S.A.
- Annabelle McCarthy (Integrative Biology) – Investigating potential ecological traps: small prairie patches in cropland
- Daniel Mok (Plant Biology) – Investigation of phylloplane pH regulation structures in six Gossypium species
- Paul Ojo (Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences) – Assessing and modeling the spatio-temporal variability of crop residue cover and soil health metrics in a corn-soybean-wheat rotation
- Goutham Thotakuri (Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences) – Effect of water stress on soil pore structure in plant systems of contrasting biological diversity
- Moriah Young (Integrative Biology) – Uncovering the short- and long-term temporal changes of an early-successional field’s soil microbial community under climate warming and drought
2023-2024
- DeShae Dillard (Entomology) – Functional diversity and community composition of Diptera in agroecosystems
- Juliana Hanle (Earth and Environmental Sciences) – Can synthetic aperture radar remotely identify climate-smart management and crop yield?
- Jincheng Huang (Fisheries and Wildlife, Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability) – The impacts of COVID-19 on global agricultural landscapes and biodiversity
- Nan Jia (Fisheries and Wildlife, Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability) – Climate change drives crop-weed competition shifts and threatens future food security
- Tvisha Martin (Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences) – Can soil food webs recover from drought? Assessing nematode communities within rain exclusion shelters that vary in drought intensity
- Prateek Sharma (Earth and Environmental Sciences) – Understanding the major drivers for N2O dynamics under different management systems
- Goutham Thotakuri (Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences) – Effects of water stress on soil pore structure in plant systems of contrasting biological diversity
- Ethan Weinrich (Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences) – Bioassay for detecting the coupled effects of cover crop species and AMF on soil phosphorus acquisition from disparate soils
- Moriah Young (Integrative Biology) – Uncovering short- and long-term temporal changes of an early successional field’s soil microbial community affected by climate warming and drought
- Zheng Li (Civil and Environmental Engineering) – Examining the microorganisms assimilating carbon from 1,4-dioxane in contaminated and uncontaminated soil sediments
2022-2023
- Stephanie Clark (Integrative Biology) – Farmscapes to Forests: Re-establishing the KBS-LTER Artist-in-Residency
- Kara Dobson (Integrative Biology) – The effects of warming and drought on volatile emissions from Solidago canadensis
- Cynthia Fiser (Entomology) – Weed seed and insect predation by ground beetles within prairie strips and surrounding row crops
- Brandon Latorre (Plant Biology) – Phenological responses in experimentally-restored prairies
- Natalie Loduca (Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics) – Elicitation and estimation of risk preference and subjective probabilities to understand farmer decisions on climate change adaptation
- Tvisha Martin (Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences) – Does plant community composition affect soil food web functioning across varying aggregate sizes?
- KC Rabin (Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences) – When does cover crop residue release nitrogen during the cash crop season?
- Corinn Rutkoski (Integrative Biology) – Farmscapes to Forests: Re-establishing the KBS-LTER Artist-in-Residency
- Tayler Ulbrich (Integrative Biology) – Exploring how farmers’ perceptions of soil health affect their management decisions
- Moriah Young (Integrative Biology) – Does the soil microbial community explain plant responses to warming and drought in the field?
2021-2022
- Isabela Lima Borges (Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences) – The effects of plant inbreeding on the legume-rhizobia mutualism (lightning talk)
- Andrew Curtright (Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences) – Picky eaters: how C preference influences microbial community function (lightning talk)
- Kara Dobson (Integrative Biology) – The effects of drought and warming on the emission of volatile organic compounds from plants (lightning talk)
- Alice Puchalsky (Integrative Biology) – Prairie strips and caterpillar-parasitoid networks (lightning talk)
- Corinn Rutkoski (Integrative Biology) – Soil microbial community responses
to prairie strip establishment (lightning talk) - Pietro Sciusco (Geography, Environment and Spatial Sciences) – Global warming impacts of a managed landscape in southwestern Michigan: biogeophysical and biogeochemical climate regulations (lightning talk)
- Abrianna Soule (Plant Biology) – Combined effects of soil deposition and below-ground mutualism on plant defensive chemistry (lightning talk)
- Luwen Wan (Earth and Environmental Sciences) – Mapping tile drainage using satellite imagery and random forest machine-learning (lightning talk)
- Moriah Young (Integrative Biology) – The interactive effects of climate change and soil microbiomes on below- and aboveground trophic interactions in an early successional plant community (lightning talk)
- Jennifer Zavalnitskaya (Entomology) – Evaluating herbivore community composition across agricultural landscapes (lightning talk)
- Yuqian Zhang (Fisheries and Wildlife) – Biofuel impact on life on land: Sustainable Development Goal 15 (lightning talk)
2020-2021
- Oishi Bagchi (Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences) – Microbial dormancy and resuscitation in response to stress- associated phytohormones (lightning talk)
- Isabela Lima Borges (Kellogg Biological Station, Integrative Biology) – Testing the effects of inbreeding and soil legacy on legume-rhizobia mutualisms (lightning talk)
- Grant Falvo (Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences) – Resilience of microbial communities and soil organic matter formation to more extreme precipitation regimes across agricultural landscapes (lightning talk)
- Veronica Frans (Fisheries and Wildlife, Environmental Science and Policy Program): New era, new niche, new theory: revising ecological niche theory to account for human influence in the Anthropocene (lightning talk)
- Jinho Lee (Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences) – Long-term effect of plant diversity on soil C dynamics and C-based interactions between plant diversity, physical micro-environment, and microorganisms (lightning talk)
- Daniel Hoffman (Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences) – Plant diversity Ecosystem Services and Resiliency (lightning talk)
- Vidhya Ramalingam (Environmental Engineering Department) – Evaluation of 1,4-Dioxane Biodegradation Using Various Soil Inocula and Biomolecular Tools (lightning talk)
- Doug Slater (Department of Community Sustainability) – Farmer Mental Models of Nutrient Management Decisions (lightning talk)
- Allison Zahorec (Entomology) – Does prairie strip establishment alter the vertical stratification of microarthopod communities? (lightning talk)
- Xinyi Tu (Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences, Environmental Science and Policy Program) – Translating Science to Practice: Soil Health Assessment Adoption by Farmers in Michigan
2019-2020
- Isabela Borges (IBIO) – Testing the effects of inbreeding and soil legacy on legume-rhizobia mutualisms
- Lindsey Kemmerling (IBIO) – Tradeoffs among ecosystem services and functions for different methods of crop management
- Alyssa Kim (PSMS) – Long-term effect of plant diversity on soil micro-scale physics and its implications for O2 supply and N2O production
- Craig Kohn (Teacher Education) – Future of Agriculture Curriculum for Teaching Sustainability (FACTS)
- Jennifer Lai (Sociology) – Comparing environmental knowledge: The case of scientists and farmers in the Midwestern United States
- Cheyenne Lei (GESS) – Albedo induced global warming potential on biofuel cropping ecosystems
- Yingjie Li (FW) – Ecosystem services dynamics and interactions in globalized agricultural landscapes
- Corinn Rutkoski (IBIO) – Soil microbial dynamics in newly established conservation strips (talk)
- Ben Tirrell (PSMS) – Understanding SOC dynamics under different management systems in Michigan: calibration of an in-situ reflectance method for SOC pools initialization
- Xinyi Tu (PSMS) – Connecting on-farm study and long-term ecological research to improve nitrogen synchrony
- Allison Zahorec (Entomology) – Evaluating soil microarthropod community structure across a gradient of agricultural intensification
Full Year Fellowships
Prior to 2019 the LTER awarded a single, full year fellowship to a graduate student, in addition to summer fellowships and small research grants. You can find full fellowship awardees below, followed by summer fellowships and small research grants.
2018
- Heather Kittredge (IBIO) – The role of horizontal gene transfer in facilitating adaptation to extreme drying-rewetting
2017
- Riva Denny (SOC) – The Role of Environmental Knowledge in Farmer Conservation Decision-making
2016
- Susan Magnoli (PBL) – Evolution in the LTER: the role of rapid adaptation in plant population establishment
2015
- Dustin Kincaid (ZOL) – Broad-scale comparative studies of inland wetland across LTER sites
2014
- Leah Palm-Forster (AFRE) – Integrating economic and ecological models to inform policies that enhance ecosystem services in working agricultural landscapes
2013
- Placid Mpeketula (CSS) – Investigation on soil carbon accumulation, mycorrhizal community composition, soil aggregation and water infiltration along a management intensity gradient
2012
- Leilei Ruan (CSS) – International collaboration: Expanding the influence of the KBS LTER in mainland China and Taiwan
2011
- Lauren Kinsman-Costello (ZOL)
- Project 1. Phosphorus cycling: Cross-site data synthesis and collaboration
- Project 2. Leaving a data legacy: Towards graduate student data sharing
Summer Fellowships
2018
- Willam ‘B.J.’ Baule (GEO) – Field level validation for modeling the effects of precipitation variability on nitrogen loss in agricultural systems
- Heather Kittredge (IBIO) – Horizontal gene transfer of nitrogen fixation genes
- Reid Longley (MMG) – Analyzing the soy-associated microbiome and its effect on plant health
- Andrew Myers (ENT) – The role of ants in monarch butterfly egg and larval survival in grasslands
- Eeswaran Rasu (PSMS) – Physical controls and stability analysis of soil moisture across different agricultural systems
- Michael Ryskamp (PLB) – Effects of nitrogen addition on plant-virus interactions in prairie grasses
- Braeden Van Deynze (AFRE) – Why do farms custom hire for pest control? Pest population dynamics as transaction cost drivers
2017
- Tyler Hampton (EES) – Revealing a New Mechanism for Hyporheic Denitrification and Greenhouse Gas Production
- Matthew Houser (SOC) – Farmer fertilizer use and climate change: A social-ecological systems approach
- Jean René Thélusmond (CEE) – Determining the Potential of Diverse Soil Communities to Metabolize Emerging Environmental Contaminants using Metagenomics
- Prakash Kumar Jha (PSMS) – Understanding Drivers of Cropping Systems Dynamics in Southwest Michigan
- Guanyuan Shuai (EES) – Using Radarsat-2 data to quantify the effects of management on spatial variability of crop growth at the LTER and scale-up fields
2016
- Sydney Ruhala (EES) – Revealing the role of stream-groundwater interactions on watershed carbon processing
- Riva Denny (SOC) – US Farmers’ Actions and Beliefs Pertaining to Nutrient Management and Climate Change
2015
- Michelle Quigley (PSMS) – Biogeochemical cycling and microbial community composition in unconsolidated detrital accumulations in shallow aquatic ecosystems
- Elizabeth Schultheis (PLB) and Melissa Kjelvik (ZOL) – Unearthing scientific stories: Creating Data Nuggets with over 25 years of LTER data to improve K-16 quantitative literacy
2014
- Dustin Kincaid (ZOL) – Biogeochemical cycling and microbial community composition in unconsolidated detrital accumulations in shallow aquatic ecosystems
- Brendan O’Neill (PSMS) – An interdisciplinary approach for linking soil agroecosystem functions with farmer decision-making
2013
- Christina Leshko (SOC), Samantha Noll (PHL), Zachary Piso (PHL), and Ian Werkheiser (PHL) – Recognizing value pluralism among ecosystem services experts and public stakeholders
2012
- Moslem Ladoni (CSS) – Effects of cover crop on soil carbon sequestration and nitrate levels
- Lisa Stelzner (PLB) – Phenology, abundance, diversity and arrangement (scattered versus clumped) of forbs in biofuel sites classified as marginal land
2011
- Nikhil Jaikumar (CSS) – Ecophysiology of perennial grain crops
- Megan Woltz (ENT) – Effects of landscape characteristics on predatory insect abundance, movement, and resulting biocontrol of crop pests
Small Graduate Research Grants
2020
- Michael Ryskamp (PBL) – Effects of “wild” virus infection on within-plant trait heterogeneity and biotic interactions in Panicum virgatum L. (switchgrass)
- Corinn Rutkoski (KBS) – Soil microbial community composition during prairie strip establishment
2019
- Michael Ryskamp (PBL) – Wild virus effects on Panicum virgatum drought stress tolerance and plant-herbivore interactions
- Meredith Zettlemoyer (KBS) – The effect of climate warming and seed limitation on local species declines
2018
- Timothy Silberg (CSUS) – Modeling Parasitic Weed Emergence: A Systems Approach
2017
- Rachel Hestrin (Cornell) – Microbial contributions to arbuscular mycorhizal nitrogen uptake and transfer to plants
- Di Liang (KBS) – Assessing kinetics of nitrification and nitrification-derived nitrous oxide (N2O)
2016
- Dustin Kincaid (KBS) – Revealing the biogeochemical importance of flocculent sediments in shallow aquatic ecosystems
2015
- Mitchell Roth (PSMS) – The soybean microbiome and correlations to Sudden Death Syndrome incidence
- Bonnie McGill (KBS) – The missing carbon link: Are ag lime and groundwater irrigation sequestering carbon?
2014
- Erin Haramoto (Hort) – Measuring nitrogen loss in strip-tilled sweet corn with deep fertilizer banding
- Kristi Gdanetz (PLP) – The wheat microbiome across different land management practices
- Bonnie McGill (KBS) – Inorganic carbon weathering in an agroecosystem: fertilizer & groundwater irrigation effects
2013
- Kristi Gdanetz (PLP) – The wheat microbiome across different land management practices
- Christina Leshko (SOC), Samantha Noll (PHL), Zachary Piso (PHL), and Ian Werkheiser (PHL) – Recognizing Value Pluralism among Ecosystem Services Experts and Public Stakeholders
2012
- Chris Wright (MMG) – OTU richness and functional potential of decomposer fungi in Michigan agricultural soils
2010
- Brad Gottshall (University of Louisville) – Effects of disturbance on mycorrhizal mutualisms, abundance and diversity in agroecosystems
2007
- Courtney Gallaher – Soil phosphorus availability
2006
- Barbara Bahnmann (University of Western Ontario) – Basidiomycete diversity in row-crop agriculture
2005
- Amy Burgin (ZOL) – Dissimilatory nitrate reduction to ammonium in agriculturally influenced streams
- Kristin Huizinga (MMG) – Do disturbance and productivity affect proteobacterial denitrifier diversity?
- Wendy Mahaney (PBL) – How does the reestablishment of C4 grasses into C3-dominated old-fields affect belowground carbon and nitrogen cycling?
- Uri Levine (MMG) – Characterization of metnanotroph populations
- Terry Loecke (CSS) – The influence of residue aggreation on C and N cycling
- Stefan Lupold (University of Sheffield, UK) – Sperm quality and reproductive success in redwinged blackbirds (agelaius phoeniceus)
- Senthil Kumar Subramanian (CSS) – Spatial variability analysis of soil carbon in a perennial system (Populus sp.)
2003
- Stephanie Eichorst (MMG) – The ecological role of Acidobacterium in the soil environment
2002
- Adam Pitt (GLG) – Identification of N2O from soil denitrification using isotopomers
- Lisa Geason (GLG) – Perceptions of agroecology and choice of soil management practices
- Rich Smith (PBL) – Crop rotation and cover crops: Effects of increasing crop diversity on associated weed communities
- Stuart Grandy (CSS) – Soil aggregation and ecosystem function
- Stephen South (GEO) – Hyperspectral radiometric readings of agricultural crops (renewal)
- Kristin Huizinga (MMG) – The ecology of Plantomycetales in soil agroecosystems
2001
- Charles McKeown (ENT) – Response of the Asian Ladybeetle, Harmonia axyridis to the presence of soybean aphid, Aphis glycines, and Late season Coccinellid dispersion patterns and movement during harvest
- Stephen South (GEO) – Hyperspectral radiometric readings of agricultural crops