News

Jan 15 2025

The Des Marais Lab has been awarded a JWAFS Grand Challenge grant to improve nutrient use efficiency in crops, in a project led by Prof. Chris Voigt.

Dec 17 2024

Congratulations to Jie for successfully defending her PhD thesis! Dr. Yun will start a post-doc at Yale in March 2025

Nov 22 2024

Congratulations to Haoran for successfully defending his PhD thesis! Dr. Cai will start a post-doc at UCLA next month.

Oct 23 2024

Dave was interviewed for a nice article on how crops might respond to anthropogenic climate change.

Oct 21 2024

Haoran and Dave published a perspective piece on the role of developmental constraint in evolution in Trends in Genetics. 

Sept 12 2024

Welcome to our three undergraduate researchers for the Fall, Basil Liu, Vela Velazquez, and Ananda Santos Figueiredo!

Sept 3 2024

Big changes in the lab!

Welcome to new PhD students Tomo Yoshino and Elizabeth Roberts!

Tomo joins us from UC Berkeley, where he studied Plant and Microbial Biology and Environmental Engineering.

Elizabeth was an undergraduate at UC Davis and most recently worked as a researcher at the Broad Institute.

Welcome, also, to new Masters of Engineering students Lana Van Note and Katie Kitzinger!

Lana is completing her Bachelor's in MIT's Chemical Engineering program while beginning work on her MEng in CEE.

Katie graduated from MIT's Bioengineering program this past spring.

Finally, Charlie Neufeldt is joining the lab working towards a Masters of Science.

Aug 27 2024

Jie presented some of her thesis work at the Salt and Water Stress in Plants Gordon Research Conference.

Aug 17 2024

Post-doc Meghan left the lab to start a faculty position at the University of Virginia! 

Aug 5 2024

Dave and Meghan co-authored an article in Nature Ecology and Evolution on integrating ecological and evolutionary research.

July 27-30 2024

Dave and Haoran each presented at the Third Joint Congress of Evolutionary Biology in Montreal.July 24 2024 - New Phytologist published a short profile of Dave.

July 11 2024 - Dave published a commentary on exciting new research on the evolution of perenniality in Cell

June 8 2024 - Haoran presented his latest project on expression variability and gene duplication in New Phytologist next generation scientists symposium

Mar 28 2024 - Dave was interviewed for a podcast on the effects of climate change on plants!

Jan 26 2024 - Haoran's news press release in American Naturalist 

Nov 27 2023-  Welcome Ian McCahill! Ian is joining the lab as a post-doctoral scientist working on Brachypopdium growth responses to climate change. Ian recently completed his PhD at UMass Amherst working with Sam Hazen

Sept 18 2023 - Welcome MJ Kabongo!! MJ is joining the lab as a Research Technician after completing their undergraduate degree at Smith College.

Sept 5 2023 - Welcome Chloe Heitmeier, who starts today as a PhD student in CEE. Chloe joins us after completing her bachelors at LSU.

August 28 – Welcome (back) Theresa Caso-McHugh who started today as a Research Technician in the lab.

August 23 -- Dave presents at JGI Genomics of Energy and Environment Meeting in Berkeley, CA. (https://usermeeting.jgi.doe.gov)

August 10 – Post-doc Rui Cheng has left the lab to start as an Assistant Professor at the University of Minnesota. Congrats Rui!!

August 8 -- Haoran commentary in Evolution.

August 5 -- Jie presented two posters at the annual ASPB meeting.

July 29 -- Haoran attends Evolutionary Biology Graduate Student Workshop at Mountain Lake Biological Station.

July 11 -- Haoran attends Predicting Evolution EMBL Workshop at Heidelberg.

July 1 – Dave starts as Associate Editor at New Phytologist (https://nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/14698137).

July 1 – Post-doc Meghan Blumstein has been awarded a Bullard Fellowship (https://harvardforest.fas.harvard.edu/bullardfellowships) from the Harvard Forest to continue her work on Red Oak population genomics in our lab, in collaboration with Missy Holbrook at Harvard.

June 30 -- Goodbye to research technician Katie Irelan. Katie is off to a new position with the New Entry Sustainable Farming Project (https://nesfp.nutrition.tufts.edu/#).

June 6 – Dave, Haoran, Jie, and Hsin-fang visit colleagues at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst to expand our collaboration on Brachypodium genetics. Thanks to Sam Hazen and Madelaine Bartlett for hosting us!!

June 5 – NSF post-doctoral fellow Meghan Blumstein has accepted a position as Assistant Professor at the University of Virginia. Meghan will start in Summer 2024. Congrats, Meghan!!!!

June 1 -- Congrats to super undergraduate researcher Theresa Caso-McHugh for graduating!!!

May 26 -- Dave has been awarded the Ole Madsen Mentoring Award from CEE. (https://cee.mit.edu/cee-awards-and-honors-2023/).

May 4 – Dave received an NSF CAREER Award to support our work on GxE, and to develop a new plant laboratory class for MIT. (https://cee.mit.edu/mit-professor-david-des-marais-receives-nsf-career-award/).

April 29 -- Dave presented at the Danforth Plant Science Center on our work exploring the genetic and physiological control of growth rate in plants.

April 20 – The lab received a 24-month grant from MIT JWAFS to begin work on plant developmental responses to elevated atmospheric CO2.( https://news.mit.edu/2023/j-wafs-announces-seed-grant-recipients-0517).

April 13 – Congrats to PhD student Jie Yun for receiving a fellowship from MIT JWAFS!! (https://news.mit.edu/2023/mit-phd-students-honored-j-wafs-fellows-0413).

March 9 -- Dave presented in the Plant Biology Program at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. It was great to catch up with lab alumni Greg Greggory and Jake Barnett, both now PhD students at UMass.

February 6 – Dave has been promoted to Associate Professor!! (without tenure – MIT is odd).

January 27 – Dave has returned from teaching the annual TREX class in Hawaii. This year’s research projects focused on the effects of climate change on native forests, and formation of particulate matter (VOG) downwind of the active Kilauea eruption (https://cee.mit.edu/fieldwork-class-examines-signs-of-climate-change-in-hawaii/).

January 4 – The year is off to a great start!! Haoran’s paper interpreting temporal signals in gene expression data is out today in New Phytologist. Congrats, Haoran!! (https://nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nph.18720).