Lauren Kohart

Undergraduate Fellow

What does the day-to-day look like?

“Well, there are two experiments going on. This one is our mesocosm experiment where we are mostly just weeding there, inside the pots. But now we’re weeding outside the pots, because yesterday weeds from the rain garden just flew over here.

We’re also helping Rachel set up her experiment, so we were digging holes. And now we’re putting plastic liners in and then filling the holes with new dirt.”

How do you describe that to your friends?

“‘Oh, a lot of digging today!’ That’s the short answer. If someone asks what I do at work, I usually say ‘We’re doing ecology research, soil microbes and the relationship to plants and how that plays into ecosystem restoration.’ We’re really about the microbial community.”

Lauren worked with Scott Mangan and Claudia Stein's Natural Enemies team during summer 2018. Learn more about their plant-microbial communities research here.