Each year undergraduate students serve as interns on a project on late blight or a related Phytophthora pathosystem in the summer in the laboratories of Co-PIs. The inclusion of summer interns is an essential part of the capacity building efforts of this project. By bringing undergraduate students into the laboratory, they are given not only the chance to learn new skills in a research environment, but the opportunity to conduct research that contributes to the greater scientific body of knowledge and enhances our understanding of Phytophthora disease biology. The internship also provides an opportunity to expose students specifically to the field of plant pathology and its significance. Two thirds of previous years’ interns that have gone on to graduate school to pursue higher degrees have focused on plant pathology or a related field (e.g. plant biology, microbiology, etc.).
In 2015, we had interns working in labs at the Cornell University in Ithaca (Fry Lab), Geneva (Smart Lab), and at the Long Island Horticultural Research & Extension Center (McGrath Lab), NC State (Ristaino Lab), University of California Riverside (Judelson Lab), and the University of Idaho (Xiao Lab).
Click on a year below to learn more about the students’ research projects!