In July 2018 the Jeong Lab attended the annual conference of the American Society of Plant Biology (ASPB). The ASPB 2018 Conference was co-hosted by the Canadian Society of Plant Biologists (CSPB) and the International Society of Photosynthesis Research (ISPR), bringing Professor Jeeyon Jeong, her entourage of seven students, and thousands of plant biologists from around the globe to Montreal, Canada.
Jingwen Zhang ’18 presented a poster on her thesis research and the lab’s ongoing research on FPN3, a proposed mitochondrial iron exporter in Arabidopsis thaliana. Jingwen learned much from her experience presenting to and interacting with other plant biologists: “Not only did I learn to discuss our results in an engaging yet succinct way, I could see how the Jeong lab’s research interests relate to the work that others are doing in related fields.”
The Conference was mainly comprised of talks and symposia from many subdisciplines in plant biology. Though not all the work presented was directly related to the work done in the Jeong lab, Emily Park ’19 remarked that, by interacting with other scientists at the conference, “I learned a lot more about conducting research in general and how the scientific community functions as a whole.” Fengling Hu ’19 appreciated the context this gave to his research in the lab, stating that “we were not just furthering our tiny, specialized niche of the world, but rather working in a network of individuals – both theoretical and applied – to affect change.”
Angie Kim ’19, Fengling Hu ’19, and Leah Kim ’19 received the James R. Elster Award and Jingwen Zhang ’20 received the Oscar E. Schotte Scholarship Prize, both of which supported the conference trip. We also thank the College for the 7-passenger Pool Vehicle. Lastly, Professor Jeong and the seven students from the lab – Kaitlyn Tsuyuki ’18, Jingwen Zhang ’18, Fengling Hu ’19, Angie Kim ’19, Leah Kim ’19, Emily Park ’19, and Chris DaVeiga ’20 – would like to thank the folks at ASPB 2018 that selected our lab selfie as a finalist in the Selfie Contest for the Tim Hortons gift card.
Our second-place winning lab selfie!