Isabel Johnson

I joined Dr. Dassanayake’s lab in the Fall of 2022 as a PhD student. I attained my undergraduate degree at Ohio Wesleyan University in May of 2022. There, I worked in the herbarium and became curious about how different plants adapt to their environment. In the Dassanayake lab, I am able to work with the halophytes Schrenkiella parvula and Eutrema salsaginium which are considered the experts at adapting to extreme environments such as soil with high salt and low essential nutrients like phosphorus. These stresses have been studied respectively, but often in nature these types of abiotic stresses occur at the same time. Therefore, my research will focus on understanding the underlying mechanisms of plants growing in more than one stress condition. I will achieve this research aim by comparing the halophytes Schrenkiella parvula and Eutrema salsaginium in singular and combined stresses using a plethora of transcriptomic and genetic tool