2019 DSRF Award Winner Lingrong (Karen) Jin

The goal of my study is to investigate the impact of saltwater intrusion on soil microbial communities in coastal wetlands and how association with plant root affects microbial response to salt stress. In the past summer, I traveled to my field site in the coast of North Carolina to collect soil and plant samples and spent a few weeks in lab processing samples, running chemical analyses and doing DNA extraction. This semester I have been analyzing my data and preparing to present my research at a conference in December.