News

| Jill Sakai
As the Keegstra Bioenergy Research Fellow exploring carbon flux in switchgrass, Mauricio Tejera is working with Berkley Walker and Lisa Tiemann at Michigan State University to investigate how carbon partitioning shifts within and among plant tissues, microbes, and the environment in response to abiotic stresses.
| KBS News

In June, the W.K. Kellogg Biological Station welcomed—from an appropriate distance!—a new researcher to our community.

| Mark E. Griffin

Fatty acids, the compounds that give a diet rich in leafy greens and fish its antioxidant and anti-inflammatory benefits, are now also heralded for their versatility as raw materials in bioenergy production.

| Staff

Congratulations to Alexandra Kravchenko, GLBRC researcher and professor of plant, soil, and microbial sciences at Michigan State University, who was awarded the 2020 Don and Betty Kirkham Soil Physics Award by the

| Regina Murphy

On July 5, 2020, Professor Jennifer Reed passed away after a long illness. Jennie joined the chemical and biological engineering faculty at UW-Madison in 2007, jumpstarting the department’s research efforts in computational systems biology.

| Jill Sakai

Grasslands are a vital but shrinking ecosystem in the U.S., and conversion to cropland is a leading driver of this change.

| Jill Sakai

Adrianna Trusiak has been on the job for three months but still hasn’t seen her office. She started her role as a Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center research coordinator at the beginning of April, just a few weeks after the Center’s in-person operations ceased due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

| Jill Sakai

One of the slowest and most expensive steps in turning biomass into chemicals and other useful products is separating the compounds of interest from the mixture of liquid solvents and other byproducts made during processing.

| Kim Geiger

High yields. A deep root system that prevents soil erosion and allows for minimal irrigation. The ability to pull large amounts of carbon out of the air and sequester it in the soil. Beneficial effects on wildlife, pollination, and water quality. Perennial grasses, such as switchgrass and elephant grass, are wonderful in many ways and especially promising biofuel feedstocks.

| Laura Schultz

Gracielou Klinger likes to describe the chemicals she uses in her research at Michigan State University (MSU) as “smelly.” Klinger, a biochemistry graduate student in the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC), studies how smelly chemicals such as sulfur can be used to break apart lignin and turn it into valuable products like biofuels.