MPS students awarded 2024 Keegstra and Thomashow Travel Awards
Graduate students Xiaotong Jiang and Bailey Kleven are the 2024 recipients of the Keegstra and Thomashow Travel Awards.
The Keegstra and Thomashow Travel Awards are named for two former directors of the PRL, Kenneth Keegstra and Michael Thomashow. The award annually recognizes two distinguished PRL graduate students and support them in presenting their research at a high-quality research conference. The recipients were announced April 15 at the Anton Lang Memorial Awards Ceremony.
By Kara Headley
“Presenting research results and networking at meetings is essential to the career of all scientists,” said Christoph Benning, director of the PRL. “This is especially true for young scientists, and this is what the Keegstra and Thomashow award facilitates. On behalf of all at the PRL I am congratulating this year’s awardees.”
Xiaotong Jiang is a member of Jianping Hu’s lab, and is in the Department of Plant Biology and the Molecular Plant Sciences graduate program.
She will be attending the American Society of Plant Biologists 2024 Plant Biology conference in Honolulu, Hawaii. She will present on her research, “Arabidopsis Glyoxylate Reductase 1 is involved in a non-canonical photorespiratory pathway under high light conditions.”
She is looking forward to connecting with and discussing her work with researchers.
“I believe that my experience at the conference will have a long-lasting impact on my career, and the Keegstra/Thomashow travel award is a huge support for this,” Jiang said.
Courtesy photo
Bailey Kleven is in Gregg Howe’s lab. She is in the Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology and the Molecular Plant Sciences graduate program.
She is attending the 2024 International Conference on Arabidopsis Research (ICAR) in San Diego, California and will present on her research, “Coordination of energy supply and demand by CYCLIN-DEPENDENT KINASE 8.”
“In addition to presenting my current work, I am eager to delve into the latest cutting-edge research, resources, techniques and tools employed within the Arabidopsis community,” Kleven said. “I believe these insights could not only advance my research but also open up possibilities for potential collaborations.”
