New faces at KBS: Faculty and postdoctoral research associates

W.K. Kellogg Biological Station continues to grow, having added several new faculty members and postdoctoral research associates over the past months. Join us in welcoming them to KBS!

Faculty

Kozakiewicz

Christopher P. Kozakiewicz joined KBS in January 2023 as an assistant professor in MSU’s Department of Integrative Biology. He comes to KBS from Colorado State University, where he was a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Pathology. His research focuses on using genomic tools to examine how the environment shapes ecological and evolutionary interactions between wildlife and their infectious diseases.

Sullivan

Lauren Sullivan joined KBS in late 2022 as an assistant professor in MSU’s Department of Plant Biology. She comes to KBS from the University of Missouri, where she was an assistant professor in the Division of Biological Sciences. Her research focuses on combining field experiments with theoretical models to develop a general understanding about the causes and consequences of dispersal, using statistically rigorous experimental results to create assumptions for general theoretical models that can be scaled in time and space.

Gerson

Jacqueline Gerson will be joining KBS beginning fall 2023 as an assistant professor in MSU’s Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences. She comes to KBS from the University of Colorado Boulder, where she was a postdoctoral scholar in the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences. Her research focuses on how anthropogenic activities have altered the cycling of nutrients and contaminants through watersheds, with a focus on linked biogeochemical cycles within socioenvironmental systems.

Postdoctoral researchers

Garrison

Ava Garrison joined the Conner Lab as a postdoctoral research associate in late 2022. She previously was a graduate student in the Conner Lab. She earned their Ph.D. in July 2022. Her research interests include plant evolutionary biology, trait adaptation, and phenotypic plasticity.

Naasko

Katherine Naasko joined the Sprunger Lab in January 2023. She came to KBS from Washington State University, where she earned her Ph.D. in soil science in 2022. Her research interests include agroecology with respect to how land management and climate change impacts microbial-driven soil carbon and nitrogen cycling in deep soil profiles.

Broderick

Caitlin Broderick joined the Evans Lab in spring 2023. Her research interests include ecosystem ecology, microbial ecology, and drought sensitivity.

Datta

Ashim Datta joined the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center at KBS in summer 2023. His faculty sponsor is G. Philip Robertson. He joined the Robertson Lab in summer 2023, from the ICAR-Central Soil Salinity Research Institute in Haryana, India. His research interests include soil carbon and greenhouse gas emissions and dynamics.