News

Faculty member Devanshi Khokhani has received a National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award for her project "Integrating the Next Generation into Investigating Cross-kingdom Interactions between Mycorrhizal Fungi and Hyphosphere Bacteria."

Congratulations! Pranaya passed her defense on May 13, 2026. 

Thank you to everyone who attended Awards Day! Read the story for a full list of winners. 

What does a great microbial combination look like for our most beloved crops, and how big is that community? Khokhani Lab PhD student Pranaya Kaki recently led a study digging into the microbial secrets to success for corn, one of the United States’s most important crops.

Congratulations to Colin Peters of the Blanchette Lab for winning a 2026-2027 Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship! 

“The particular [Ralstonia] strains that I'm going to be working with in the lab are strains that could threaten food production, especially here in the potato producing areas of the country.”

Andrew Mann and Blanchette Lab colleagues invested how the microbial communities of Minnesota’s trees are altered by the arrival and presence of invasive Emerald Ash Borer beetles, and how that impacts the trees' health. 

The Department of Plant Pathology was represented at the 2026 CFANS Symposium by 2 presentations and 3 posters. Pranaya Kaki took home the first-place ribbon for “Abstract of Distinction” for her presentation. Congratulations, Pranaya!

The award was presented to Bob Blanchette at the recent Minnesota Shade Tree Conference by several of his past students who took his Diseases of Forest and Shade Trees class.