News
Learn more about what’s been happening in the Rhee Lab and celebrate with us!
April 27th, 2026
Congratulations to Rhee Lab member Erin Cushing on receiving a Paul Taylor Endowment Award from MSU’s Department of Plant Biology! This award provides travel funding for meetings and opportunities to learn new research techniques. Congrats again, Erin!
April 13th, 2026
A warm welcome to our newest Rhee Lab member, Yingtao Li! Yingtao is a Postdoctoral Scholar from the University of Tsukuba visiting Michigan State University to advance the work of C-SPIRIT‘s Aim 1 and 5. He will be working with Rhee Lab member Bri Hashim to study stress resilience in pennycress.
April 13th, 2026
We had a blast at the 2026 Michigan State University Science Festival STEAM Expo Days this past weekend! Rhee Lab members Karine Prado, Matt Stata, Barno Rezaeva, and Katie Philipps presented their activity “Exploring Growth and Self-Recycling with Corn”, where visitors learned about how corn plants grow, recycle nutrients, and repair themselves as they develop. See pictures on our LinkedIn and BlueSky!
April 12th, 2026
Congratulations to Rhee Lab members Evan Saldivar, Bo Xue, and Seung Yon (Sue) Rhee as well as their colleagues on the publication of their article “A Reference-Free Algorithm Disovers Regulation in the Plant Transcriptome” in Plant Direct! Their study introduces SPLASH, a reference-free algorithm that detects gene regulation directly from RNA-seq data without relying on a reference genome. It reveals patterns such as allele-specific expression and alternative splicing across plant datasets, enabling discovery even in poorly characterized species. Click here to read the article!
April 10th, 2026
We’re hiring a Research Assistant III/S to support cutting-edge research on plant resilience using molecular biology and advanced imaging approaches! This role offers opportunities to contribute to collaborative, interdisciplinary projects while developing mentorship and leadership experience in a dynamic lab environment. Applications close April 21, 2026, with the possibility of reopening in late April or early May; if the posting is closed, interested candidates are encouraged to reach out directly by email. Click here to learn more!
March 24th, 2026
Join Rhee Lab members Karine Prado, Matt Stata, Barno Rezaeva, and Katie Philipps at the 2026 Michigan State University Science Festival STEAM Expo Days on April 11th & 12th! They will be running an activity titled “Exploring Growth and Self-Recycling with Corn”, where visitors can discover how corn plants grow, recycle nutrients, and repair themselves as they develop. Stop by to explore, enjoy some popcorn, and take home colorful glass-gem corn kernels!
March 16th, 2026
Rhee Lab member Matt Stata has been featured in East Lansing Info! We’re excited to see Matt highlighted in “East Lansing Makers: Do You Know the Mushroom Man?”, which explores his passion for cultivating gourmet mushrooms like oyster, lion’s mane, and chestnut varieties at home.
March 12th, 2026
This week, Rhee Lab members Charles, Aidan, Katie, and Barno from Michigan State University joined Glencairn Elementary’s Science Night, sharing hands-on activities about plant growth, chemistry, and molecular models with curious young scientists! See pictures of this events in our gallery.
March 2nd, 2026
Congratulations to Rhee Lab member Dr. Evan Saldivar on successfully defending his PhD dissertation “Discovery of novel molecular players in the adaptive response to nitrogen deprivation in two divergent model photoautotrophs” on March 2nd at Stanford Biology! We are so proud of you, Evan!
February 2nd, 2026
A warm welcome to our newest Rhee Lab member, Natalie Pitts! Natalie is an undergraduate student at Michigan State University and will be working with Erin Cushing.
December 18th, 2025
The Rhee Lab has three new members! We are excited to share that Ryan Brener (PhD Student), Aidan Deneen (PhD Student), and Elena Elias (Undergraduate Student) have recently joined our team. Welcome, Ryan, Aidan, and Elena!
December 4th, 2025
Congratulations to Dr. Seung Yon (Sue) Rhee on receiving 2025 Michigan State University College of Natural Science Research Leadership Award! This honor highlights her leadership in advancing plant resilience research, mentoring scientists, and building impactful collaborations across MSU and with global partners. Read the full announcement here.
November 7th, 2025
Congratulations to Rhee Lab Members Karine Prado, Bo Xue, Sterling Field, Matt Stata, Charles Hawkins, and their colleagues on the publication of their manuscript “Photosynthetic acclimation is a key contributor to exponential growth of a desert plant in Death Valley summer” in Current Biology! Read the press release for the manuscript here, and additional writing about the manuscript here and here.
November 4th, 2025
Congratulations MSU’s Plant Resilience Institute faculty member Hatem Rouached, his team, and The Rhee Lab on the publication of their new manuscript “Phosphorus availability controls flowering time through subcellular reprogramming of bGLU25 and GRP7 in Arabidopsis“! Published in Developmental Cell, this newly discovered signaling pathway explains how plants delay flowering when phosphorus runs low, opening doors to creating nutrient-efficient crops. Read the full news release here!
September 3rd, 2025
MSU’s Plant Resilience Institute is seeking a highly motivated postdoctoral researcher to investigate how plant-derived compounds affect nematode physiology, behavior, and survival, and to uncover the molecular mechanisms of desiccation tolerance in C. elegans! The successful candidate will work in collaboration with MSU nematode experts, C-SPIRIT, and WALII. Review of applications begins September 12, 2025. Click here to learn more and apply!
August 26th, 2025
MSU’s Plant Resilience Institute is seeking a highly motivated and skilled postdoctoral researcher to lead a project focused on discovering a new class of regulatory metabolites and their nuclear signaling mechanisms that govern plant resilience! Review of applications begins September 5th, 2025. Click here to learn more and apply!
August 25th, 2025
Congratulations to Rhee Lab members Evan Saldivar and Sterling Field on the publication of their article “Cellular view of metabolism: metabolicbiomolecular condensates” in New Phytologist! Their article reviews how metabolic biomolecular condensates help cells regulate metabolism by clustering enzymes and molecules in small compartments. It highlights both classical and newly discovered examples, showing how these structures improve efficiency, respond to stress, and represent an important area for future plant research. Click here to read the article!
August 18th, 2025
Congratulations to Rhee Lab member Matt Stata and his colleagues on the publication of their article “How evolution repeatedly builds complexity: a case study with C4 photosynthesis in Blepharis (Acanthaceae)” in New Phytologist! Their article explores how C4 photosynthesis has evolved multiple times in the plant genus Blepharis, which contains a wide range of intermediate forms between C3 and C4 types. This diversity makes Blepharis a powerful model for studying convergent evolution and the emergence of complex traits. Click here to read the article!
June 19th, 2025
New members alert!
We are excited to announce two Summer REU students have joined our lab as part of the MSU Plant Genomics REU program! Welcome Arianna and Rylee! Ari joins us from North Park University and Rylee is coming from University of Maryland Eastern Shore.
May 27th, 2025
We’re excited to announce our latest paper Implementing a framework of carbon and nitrogen feedback responses into a plant resource allocation model (Holland et al., 2025) is now available in pre-print in in-silico Plants! This paper authored by Dr. Beth Holland in our lab discusses a framework model of internal feedback responses to changes in plant carbon and nitrogen concentrations.
Please find the full paper here!
April 22nd, 2025
Hot off the presses!
We are excited to announce our paper UnigeneFinder: An Automated Pipeline for Gene Calling From Transcriptome Assemblies Without a Reference Genome is officially in press at Plant Direct! UnigeneFinder is a software pipeline which automates the steps required to get from the results of de novo transcriptome assembly to a set of “unigenes” (a single best isoform for each putative locus).
Congratulations to Bo Xue, Karine Prado, Sue Rhee, and Matt Stata for developing this tool! Please find the full paper here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/pld3.70056
April 14th, 2025
We are excited to announce that our newest member, Barno Ruzimurodovna Rezaeva, has successfully defended her thesis. Dr. Rezaeva will be starting in our lab as a Postdoctoral Research Associate in May. Please join us in celebrating this wonderful accomplishment!
Dr. Matt Stata, a Postdoctoral Research Associate in our lab, is an awardee in the latest round of PRI Seed Grants! Dr. Stata is joined by Dr. Kelem Alamrie (Walker Lab) and Dr. Beth Holland (Rhee Lab) on this project with a goal of “Mapping C₄ Evolution Through snRNA-seq and Metabolomics in Parallel Intermediate-Rich Lineages”.