Environmental Internship Program - 2023 Booklet

Sarina Wen ’26
CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL ENGINEERING
Certificates: Biotechnology, Neuroscience
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
I worked at the Stony Ford Seed Farm and
Conway Lab at Princeton University, where
I gained valuable laboratory and field skills
by working on various projects related to
agriculture and crop resilience. For the drought
project, I planted seeds and crafted a watering
system that puts plants through a simulated
drought. This setup allows for later sampling
and investigation of the microbiomes to gain
knowledge of plant-microbial interactions during
droughts. In another project, I tagged, organized
and documented over 1,500 okra plants to later
harvest to evaluate for seed oil content in hopes
of discovering a new alternative and more
sustainable oil source. In the laboratory, I worked
to purify and extract DNA from Arabidopsis
plants and performed polymerase chain
reactions to identify primers for future research.
I also performed lab tests to determine whether
plants were homozygous for certain genes. I
loved learning about what can be accomplished
through chemical and biological engineering and
cannot wait to do more of this type of research.
FOOD SYSTEMS
AND HEALTH
* 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.”
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