I recently had the chance to attend my 6th SICB conference, hosted this year in sunny Tampa Florida. There, I presented work from the final chapter of my dissertation which investigated the relationship between symbiosis, immunity, and the transforming growth factor beta pathway in cnidarians. The science was well received and a great time was had by all. I was joined by all the current members of the Mydlarz lab, as well as a strong group of fellow coral scientists. Dr. Mydlarz co-sponsored a fantastic symposium on early metazoans which included several talks on cnidarians and my new second favorite taxa: ctenophores. I'm already looking forward to next year!

Dr. Bolnick and I have received funding from the American Association of Immunologists to fund my salary for the next year (2/2019-1/2020). This project is funded under the AAI's Intersect Fellowship for Computational Biologists and Immunologists. Our funded work includes using single cell sequencing to study stickleback immunology.  Additional support on this grant will be provided by co-advisor Dr. Jill Wegrzyn of the UConn Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department.  We're excited to see what comes of this project!