🎤 Early Career Showcase I

Effects of Brush Pile Burning in the Chicago region by  Antonio Del Vallé, Emma Leavens, Meghan Midgley Research project summary Over the past three years, we have conducted research on brush ...

A really good blog post by @mortonarboretum.bsky.social Soil Ecology researchers on their research into how brush pile burning affects restored woodlands.

woodsandprairie.blogspot.com/2025/12/effe...

Very proud of my grad students and their first poster presentation, they both did great!

This week...

Sorry I didn’t find what you wanted @andrewlhipp.bsky.social

Look, I wrote a blog post.

Come hangout with me next summer in Laramie! Also I might have an in with the technical program lead (it’s me, I’m the lead) so your abstract is likely to get accepted www.asrs.us/2026-confere...

Update: the 17,000 weren’t enough and I just ordered 2,000 more.

A grassland on a sunny day near Boulder, CO

We're recruiting!! Myself along with Nathan Gill, Dylan Schwilk @schwilk.org, and Katharine Suding are recruiting people for Master's, PhD, and postdoc positions in GrassFire, an NSF funded project examining fuels and fire risk in grassland ecosystems across the Southern Great Plains! 🔥🌿🐮

Hey, as a librarian I need to tell you:

Our funding depends on usage.

So go ahead and check out that book even if you don't think you'll finish it. No one will know. Check out that DVD even though you might not like it. Get ambitious in your quest for knowledge.

The first fieldwork as a PI was a success! #newPI #fieldwork #soilsampling #uwyo

Update: I used 94 of my 17,000 tubes this week. Only 16,904 to go!

Despite zero cases of non-citizens voting in Wyoming elections, voters will now be required to show citizenship documents, a move which will penalize women, the elderly, rural voters, and the unhoused for no reason at all, besides fueling xenophobic conspiracy theories and undermining voting rights.

This paper shows you probably don’t need to, which is good news for you and your pocketbook! Also, commercial inoculants can replace the native AMF which isn’t great.

From Degraded to Restored: How Soil Mycorrhizal Fungi React to Restoration Management Practices Native prairie ecosystems have been disappearing across North America since the agricultural revolution of the 1800s. The increased need for higher crop yields, infrastructure, and resource extract…

A News article about some of my post doc work! #mycorrhiza #restoration #bison #tallgrass uwagnews.com/2025/07/11/s...

from www.instagram.com/yeweijun98

Slime molds eat the microbes on decaying plants but not the microbes on decaying animals. Badhamia (Physarum) polycephala is an unusually adventurous eater who also enjoys mushrooms, oats, and probably a number of other things!

I wonder what's up with the peanut

Off to Edinburgh for #Rhizosphere6! Looking forward to seeing the latest research and going to a new place.

I have some money I need to spend by the end of June so I ordered 17,000 tubes of various shapes and sizes for my lab today. Needless to say we will be stocked for a while. If you need to store 0.2ul to 50ml of liquid, hit me up. #labsupplies #newPI

quote on a dark blue and purple background from Sudip S. Parikh, CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), criticizing proposed cuts to science funding in the FY26 U.S. federal budget. The quote reads: “If enacted, the FY26 budget request would end America’s global scientific leadership. The cuts to science would imperil our nation’s future health, security and prosperity. This budget proposal stands in stark contrast to the President’s call for a renewed commitment to American scientific leadership. Congress has demonstrated a bipartisan commitment to investment in research and must do so again to answer the President’s call.” The quote is attributed to Sudip S. Parikh, CEO of AAAS and Executive Publisher of the Science family of journals. The AAAS logo appears at the bottom right.

I don't think anyone outside of universities, pharma and biotech, independent research institutions have any idea of what is happening right now. If you haven't sounded the alarm among your friends, family and colleagues, now is the time to do it.

I found this carex in the black hills of Wyoming last week and thought of you Andrew!

A table titled "Funding Levels Summary (in millions)" shows funding data for various U.S. federal agencies over fiscal years FY24, FY25, and the FY26 President's Budget Request (PBR). It includes five columns: Agency, FY24 Omnibus, FY25 CR (Continuing Resolution), FY25 Enacted, FY26 PBR, and % Change from FY25 to FY26 PBR. Agencies and their respective funding levels (in millions) and percent changes are: DOE (Department of Energy) FY24 Omnibus: $50,246.75 FY25 CR: $50,246.75 FY25 Enacted: $49,800 FY26 PBR: $45,100 % Change: -9.4% DOE Office of Science FY24 Omnibus: $8,240 FY25 CR: $8,240 FY25 Enacted: — FY26 PBR: $7,092 % Change: -13.9% EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) FY24 Omnibus: $9,158.89 FY25 CR: $9,158.89 FY25 Enacted: $9,100 FY26 PBR: $5,000 % Change: -54.5% NASA FY24 Omnibus: $24,875 FY25 CR: $24,875 FY25 Enacted: $24,800 FY26 PBR: $18,800 % Change: -24.3% NASA SMD (Science Mission Directorate) FY24 Omnibus: $7,334.20 FY25 CR: $7,565.70 FY25 Enacted: — FY26 PBR: $3,908.2 % Change: -46.7% NIEHS (National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences) FY24 Omnibus: $997.02 FY25 CR: $997.02 FY25 Enacted: — FY26 PBR: NA % Change: NA NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) FY24 Omnibus: $6,319 FY25 CR: $6,319 FY25 Enacted: — FY26 PBR: $4,799 % Change: -24% NSF (National Science Foundation) FY24 Omnibus: $9,060 FY25 CR: — FY25 Enacted: $8,800 FY26 PBR: $3,900 % Change: -55.8% USGS (United States Geological Survey) FY24 Omnibus: $1,455.43 FY25 CR: $1,455.43 FY25 Enacted: — FY26 PBR: $891.43 % Change: -38.8% Red text is used to denote percentage decreases in FY26 PBR compared to FY25. Several entries for FY25 Enacted are missing or denoted with a dash. NIEHS has no FY26 PBR or percent change listed.

This is not a science budget. This is a massacre.

thebridge.agu.org/2025/05/05/t...

I got this quote for a pretty basic microscope today. What a fun time to be setting up a new lab.

Budget released today:
40% cut to NIH
50% cut to NSF
If enacted, this will destroy academic research in the United States. It will also have a major trickle down effect on the entire academic ecosystem

Yesssss, absolutely agreed. That being said, I am tempted to buy these for my lab.

Found at my local Walmart for $4. I am incredibly skeptical of most of these products.

They produce such important data here which is used globally. I literally showed the latest CO2 plot in my class today.

Is Carl the orange or the black cat? Also how did I not know we had such a cute director?

I loved doing an REU and have mentored several of my own REU students. This is such an invaluable program to foster the next generation of scientists.