Student Opportunities
Summer School: Quantitative Phage-Bacteria Dynamics Across Scales
The aim of this one-week summer school program at UMD is to foster dialogue between early career trainees and thought leaders in the quantitative study of phage-bacteria dynamics across scales, including a mix of lectures and hands-on learning. Held from June 23–27, each day will include morning lectures, afternoon computational labs, and evening poster sessions/plenaries. Students should have experience in file manipulation and Python or R. Registration is free for accepted students and travel awards are available. Read more and reach out to Joshua Weitz (jsweitz@umd.edu) with questions. Deadline: Friday, April 4, 2025
Center of Excellence in Microbiome Sciences Announces 2025 Graduate Student Fellowship
The seven-month fellowship includes a financial award and complimentary professional training in team science and cross-disciplinary systems approaches. The application is open to actively enrolled UMD graduate students (at least through the end of 2025), working in a field related to microbial systems and microbiome research from natural, mathematical, and computational sciences, engineering, and other fields as relevant. Check the webpage for more information and reach out to Gabi Steinbach (gabis@umd.edu) with questions. Deadline: Friday, April 11, 2025
QIAGEN 2025 Young Scientist Research Grant
Graduate students students working in cancer research, microbiome/microbiology or sustainability research are encouraged to apply. Each winner will receive $5,000 worth of QIAGEN consumables and one-year CLC Workbench Premium License worth $5,000. Read more Deadline: Tuesday, April 15, 2025
Relevant Seminars
ASM Webinar on Microbial Genome Data Analysis
When: Tuesday, March 25—Monday, May 26
What: A four-part live webinar series to help researchers and educators develop essential computational biology skills using KBase, a free, open-access data analysis platform. Part of the NSF-funded MICROnet initiative, this series covers microbial isolate genome analysis, from raw sequence data to data publication. Learn More
ASM Distinguished Lecturer Dinner-meeting
Speaker: ASM Waksman Foundation Distinguished Lecturer Dr. Joanne Engel, M.D., Ph.D., Professor, University of California at San Francisco
When: Tuesday, April 22
Location: Sheraton Baltimore North Hotel
Meeting registration and meal selection via PayPal is available on the Branch website, and must be made by April 16. Learn More
News of Interest
Human Microbiome Acquisition and Transmission
This review explores how our microbiomes are transmitted, beginning at birth and during interactions with other humans and the environment, with implications for microbial host regulation, microbiome-associated diseases, and how complete understanding of microbiome acquisition and transmission can only be attained by adopting a One Health perspective. Read more
ASM and IUMS Unveil Global Framework to Implement Microbial Climate Solutions
The new report highlights microbial innovations to combat climate change and the accompanying Nature article offers implementation framework. Read more
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