UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — There are many opportunities to participate in undergraduate- and graduate-level research in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences.
The benefits are numerous, and two graduate students in the Department of Animal Science, Emily Van Syoc and Sophia Kenney, are among those reaping these benefits. Both are working in the lab of Erika Ganda, assistant professor of food animal microbiomes.
Van Syoc, of Lompoc, California, is a third-year graduate student in the integrative and biomedical physiology, clinical and translational sciences dual-title doctorate program, where she is co-advised by Ganda and Connie Rogers, associate professor of nutritional sciences and physiology in the College of Health and Human Development. She has a background in both soil science and animal science.
“I wanted to be a veterinarian until I worked on a sheep ranch and started to learn about soil health and the soil microbiome,” she said. “I decided to pursue graduate school at the University of Wyoming, where I completed my master’s degree in soil science. Then, I decided to go back into the medical field. I looked at doctoral programs in the human microbiome, which led me to Dr. Ganda’s lab at Penn State.”
Van Syoc recently received several awards, including the T32 Integrative Analysis of Metabolic Phenotypes Fellowship from the National Institutes for Health, a Predoctoral Fellowship from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture, and Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences Graduate Student Competitive Grant.
Her poster about integrative and biomedical physiology was a winner in a competition hosted by Penn State’s Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences.
Van Syoc researches the gut microbiome, which is the community of bacteria, fungi, eukaryotes and viruses that make up an ecosystem of microbes that live in the human gastrointestinal tract.
Van Syoc explained that students at Penn State can guide their studies to meet specific goals. She recommends that students be strategic when choosing an adviser, keeping their career goals in mind.
“Penn State has incredible research infrastructure, and the Huck interdisciplinary degree programs allow us to research anything we can dream up,” Van Syoc said. “Dr. Ganda has been a driving force behind building collaborations, and I frequently work with other labs across the University. She is an amazing mentor and puts time and effort into helping me reach my goals.”
Kenney is a second-year graduate student in the molecular, cellular and integrative biosciences doctoral program. She has an extensive background in microbiology and immunology, working in research laboratories as an undergraduate. She also has immunology and infectious disease expertise.
Kenney, from Morgantown, West Virginia, attended West Virginia University (WVU), where she majored in immunology and medical microbiology. While at WVU, she worked in a range of research labs, studying gene regulation in embryogenesis, the microbiome-gut-brain axis in acute and chronic neuroinflammation, and the Bordetella pertussis vaccine development.
She has received the T32 Computation, Bioinformatics, and Statistics Training Fellowship and a USDA Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Graduate Student Research Grant.
“Being selected for support under the CBIOS Fellowship allows me to receive guided training in the fields of computation, bioinformatics and statistics,” said Kenney. “That’s enabling me to gain expertise in disciplines highly relevant to genomic analysis, which is a major component of my research interests.”
Her research leverages multidisciplinary approaches to address the emergence of multidrug and antimicrobial-resistant pathogens from a One Health perspective.
Kenney explained that she began the degree program with minimal computational/bioinformatics experience. Gaining expertise in bioinformatics was one of her goals and working in the Ganda lab is helping her to achieve that aspiration.
“Confronting the limitations of your abilities is inherent in answering research questions that require multidisciplinary approaches,” Kenney said. “Being able to struggle some while becoming very comfortable with asking for help is invaluable to addressing those challenges.”
She noted that Ganda’s support has been essential to her success. “Erika is an outstanding mentor and advocate,” Kenney said. “The culture she’s created is highly supportive and collaborative, allowing each of us to be challenged while nonetheless having the tools to succeed.”
Ganda said all the students in her research group are high achievers and are motivated to succeed, including Van Syoc and Kenney. “The team is comprised of members with diverse backgrounds and perspectives,” Ganda said. “They’re open to feedback, willing to help their peers and always inquisitive. I look forward to their future wins.”
The Ganda Lab, established in 2019, studies microbiomes and antibacterial resistance. The lab focuses on a One Health perspective and the interaction between animals, people and the environment. To learn more, visit gandalab.org, follow the lab on Twitter @ganda_lab or email ganda@psu.edu.