Maria joined the lab in August 2018 as an undergraduate research assistant. She was a participant in the 2017 Peru Field Course, where she directed independent study projects to measuring damage in canopy leaves comparing leaves in full sun to those in the shade.

Maria has focused her interest in plant cyanogenesis, and she spent a semester optimizing a protocol for measuring cyanogeneic potential (and presented a poster at KAS!), and is now doing an independent study investigating cyanogenic potential in field-grown lima bean plants. She has even been invited to present her research at "Posters at the Capitol", an annual event in Frankfort, KY where she will interact with elected legislators and tell them about her work.

In Fall 2019, Maria's work and interest led us to a new question about the relationship between plant cyanogenic potential and primary metabolism. She has been using the same samples she previously analyzed for cyanogenic potential and analyzing them using our GC-MS to quantify sugar and amino acids. What is the relationship between primary metabolism and defense? Maria's work is giving us some insight on this question!

All of this said, Maria is also interested in Ginko trees. Ginko trees are remarkable.