Environmental Internship Program - 2023 Booklet

Sava Evangelista ’26
COMPUTER SCIENCE
PROJECT TITLE
Probing Microbial
Colonization of Plants
During Drought to Enable
Microbiome-mediated
Resilience in Crops
ORGANIZATION(S)
Conway Lab,
Department of
Chemical and Biological
Engineering, Princeton
University
LOCATION(S)
Princeton, New Jersey
MENTOR(S)
Jonathan Conway,
Assistant Professor of
Chemical and Biological
Engineering; Ting Jiang,
Postdoctoral Research
Associate, Chemical and
Biological Engineering;
Chao Liao, Postdoctoral
Research Associate,
Chemical and Biological
Engineering
The primary goal of my project was to grow
plants in a simulated drought environment and
to analyze their root microbiomes. This data
will enable us to identify which bacterial strains
become enriched during drought and study them
in hopes of creating techniques that would allow
plants to survive better in drought conditions.
I helped prepare farmland for the high tunnel
used for the research and participated in many
other projects at the Stony Ford Seed Farm.
Additionally, I assisted postdoctoral researchers
with their gene knockout experiments, took
root measurements and imaged seedlings.
Through this project and with the guidance of
my mentors, I have gained a lot of lab experience
and more general science knowledge and I was
especially interested to observe the amount
of meticulosity that goes into each step of an
experiment. Although I don’t think I will pursue
work in the chemical and biological engineering
field, the internship was helpful in providing me
with a further understanding of the sciences.
* This internship is connected to the HMEI Water
and the Environment Grand Challenges project,
“Probing Microbial Colonization of Plants During
Drought to Enable Microbiome-Mediated Resilience
in Crops.”
FOOD SYSTEMS
AND HEALTH
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