WELCOME TO THE CENTER FOR INTEGRATED FUNGAL RESEARCH
The goal of the Center for Integrated Fungal Research (CIFR) is to integrate all aspects of fungal research including environmental and climate initiatives, disease, agriculture, evolution, mathematical modeling, genomics and bioinformatics, and to translate knowledge from fundamental research to stakeholders, the general public, and the scientific community. CIFR will promote education and understanding of the relative contribution of global biodiversity to the beneficial and deleterious activities of fungi.
Congratulations to high school students Sidney Gomez, Kylie Hlava, Nathan Kao, and Max Williams, enrolled at the Early Engineering and Teacher College in Charlotte (https://www.cmsk12.org/ceecHS), who were awarded first place for their Fungi Fusion research project entitled “A recycling alternative using naturally occurring fungi to degrade plastic”. The Fungi Fusion project results were presented at the Senior Expo held at the UNC Cone Center on April 24, 2024. This event provides an opportunity for high school seniors interesting in pursuing careers in research and teaching to present their project findings to administrators, scientists, teachers, and the public. Students partner and interact closely with peers and professionals to receive guidance and mentoring for developing their team projects and to foster local community and industry involvement. Student mentors for the Fungi Fusion team project included Dr. Morgan Carter, Department of Biological Sciences, UNC-Charlotte; Devin Tyler and Leah Weaver of Marc Cubeta’s lab (CIFR and DEPP) and Tarek Aziz (Department of Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering) laboratories at NC State University. For more information on the Fungi Fusion research project visit (https://www.fungifusion.org/), (https://drive.google.com/file/d/13pb9gXfumAIz04LZDkz-aCr3JXmbAMlr/view), and (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61LIV92UMnc).
Congratulations to Christine Hawkes for being one of twelve professors in CALS to be named a William Neal Reynolds Distinguished Professor. See the video announcement HERE.
Owen Duckworth has been named a Fellow of the Soil Science Society of America. Congratulations on this recognition!
Congratulations to Manuel Kleiner on achieving tenure! We wish you continued success!
Read about Ignazio Carbone’s and James White’s Tree-Based Alignment Selector (T-BAS) toolkit for assembling a Phytophthora “Tree of Life” in collaboration with Jean Ristaino and colleagues: https://news.ncsu.edu/2023/04/researchers-assemble-pathogen-tree-of-life/
Congratulations to Manuel Kleiner who was included in NC State’s 2022-23 class of University Faculty Scholars!
Alun Lloyd has been named as the College of Sciences’ Associate Dean for Academic Affairs. Read all about it HERE. Congratulations!
Learn how we are working to explore the diverse roles of fungi in the biosphere.
Learn how we plan to model, predict and manage the consequences of environmental impacts on microbes and microbial processes.
Learn more about CIFR faculty members and opportunities for interdisciplinary research and training.
