Microbiome Extended Phenotypes Lab
Latest News
August 2026- Yvonne Kan joins the lab as a Research Tech! Excited to have you staying with the group!
August 2026- Welcome Evelyn Lozano Ramos to the lab as a Ph.D. student. Evelyn is currently working on the FFAR project to bioprospect root exudates for microbial management.
August 2026- Amazing talks and poster presentations given by Mariana and Hailey at Botany. You all are the best!
August 2026- Welcome Dev Paola Hernandez, undergrad researcher, to the lab!
July 2026- Had a wonderful time visiting Sherry Flint Garcia at the ARS and Mizzou! I was very impressed by the Interdisciplinary Plant Group and had a great time giving a talk to the group
July 2026- Excited to announce that I was selected as a USDA E. Kika De La Garza Fellow! It's an incredible honor to be associated with a senator who did so much to advance agriculture in the United States.
July 2026- Welcome to Waqar Ahmad, a postdoctoral researcher, to the Favela lab! Waqar will be working on the ARPA-E TEOSYNTE Project to study how to better control nitrification and denitrification in the agroecosystem. Welcome Waqar!
May 2026 – FFAR Fertilizer project in the field! Excited to see the outcomes!
May 2026 – Amazing work led by Yvonne Kan, an undergrad in my lab, on microbial extracellular polymeric substance and its role in soil hydrology. Please check out the preprint if you're interested!
May 2026- So, pound of Mariana, Avery, Hailey, and Yvonne for presenting at the CALES showcase! You all are rockstars!
April 2026 – Fantastic effort by the Favela lab! Avery, Hailey, and Yvonne all presented and won awards for their work at the SPLS retreat! You all really know how to make me look good! I am so proud!
March 2026- So proud of Hailey Buell for their presentation at the Maize Genetics Meeting in Cologne, Germany, and for their fantastic effort in getting a Root and Shoot Travel grant!
February 2026- Thank you to Dr. Sanyal for their invitation to speak at the Southwestern Ag. Summit in Yuma, Arizona. It was fantastic to learn from farmers in the region.
February 2026- I was lucky enough to be invited to do a radio interview on The Morning Voice and a video interview on Farm Journal Ag Day! Excited to share the science!
January 2026- University of Arizona press on the rewilding maize work! Check it out!
January 2026- Had a wonderful time talking about soil metagenomics at Plant and Animal Genome Conference 33 in San Diego!
January 2026– After a long review process, I’m excited to announce that our work on rewilding the maize microbiome is finally out! 🎉 Titled “Lost and Found: Rediscovering Microbiome-Associated Phenotypes That Reshape Agricultural Sustainability,” this is a project I’m incredibly proud of. Across multiple field trials and genetic crosses, we show that reintroducing a small amount of teosinte ancestry into modern maize can restore interactions with nitrogen-cycling microbes—revealing plant traits that were lost during domestication but could help make agriculture more sustainable. Check it out!
January 2026- Welcome to Kai Asbill, undergraduate researcher in the lab! Hopefully you learn a ton in the lab!
December 2025- Lab Holiday Party! I love this lab. They are an amazing group of people, and I’m incredibly grateful to get to work with them every day. Building a lab, doing science, and getting to share all of it with such a great group of people is something I don’t take for granted. Feeling very lucky to do what we do! ❤️
September 2025 – In collaboration with Jason Wallace at UGA and Sierra Raglin, we published a CSH Protocol on best practices for sampling the leaf, soil, and rhizosphere microbiome of maize. Check it out!
August 2025- We want to welcome Grant Steen and Max Mason as undergraduates in the lab! Excited to see you all learn.
August 2025 – Proud of Yvonne and Avery's presentations at ESA in Baltimore, Maryland. Great seeing old friends and organizing a session on understanding microbial traits!
July 2025 – Mariana Acevedo joins the lab as a Ph.D. Student! Mariana plans to work on how drought stress and prior adaptation to aridity alter the mechanisms of plant microbiome interactions! Welcome Mariana!
July 2025 – Very excited to announce that I was selected as an FFAR-OCP Disruptive Fertilizer Technology Fellow! 🎉 My project, “Bioprospecting Wild Root Exudates to Manage Unsustainable Soil Microbiome Nitrogen Cycling,” will explore how plants naturally influence soil microbial communities through root exudates and whether we can use these interactions as an agronomic practice to improve soil fertility and promote more sustainable nitrogen cycling.
June 2025- Exited to start an Agroecosystem Research in the Desert (ARID) Project in collaboration with Giovanni Melandri, Debanker Sanyal, and Yang Song. Our research goal is to connect metagenomics, plant physiology, soil health, and modeling to better predict how agroecosystems respond to drought.
May 2025 – Favela lab starts some trials to examine the role heat and drought have on the plant microbiome!
May 2025 – Blown away by the incredible science communication materials developed by my Microbiomes course! Check one of my favorites on mosquito microbiomes out!
April 2025- It was awesome to give a guest lecture at Illinois State University! Thank you for the invite, Scott Clem!
March 2025 – We were lucky enough to be part of a team awarded a Department of Energy ARPA-E TEOSYNTE grant! Our project, “Redomesticating Maize for More Sustainable N Cycling,” will explore how we can engineer plant–microbiome interactions to help maize grow productively with lower fertilizer inputs. Reducing fertilizer requirements could have major benefits for both farmers and the environment, particularly given that fertilizer is one of the largest input costs in agriculture. We’re excited to get to work!
February 2025 – So proud of Fayth Gomez for presenting a poster at the 8th Annual Western Alliance to Expand Student Opportunities (WAESO) Student Research Conference! She took home a presentation award!
February 2025 – Avery Swanton secured a Desert Laboratory Tumamoc Hill Seed Grant to study how microbiomes can be used for cactus conservation.
February 2025 – Hailey Buell joins the lab as a Ph.D. Candidate! Their research will focus on understanding how plant genomic diversity and methylation shape plant-microbiome interactions. Welcome, Hailey happy to have you in the lab!
January 2025- Proud of Yvonne and Emily for their amazing poster presentations at the UBRP symposia!
January 2025- Started Teaching PLP/MIC 320: Microbiomes! This is a course I developed from scratch, giving students a broad overview of the philosophy, methods, and science of microbiomes across several systems.
January 2025 – We published work in Plant Soil showing that nitrogen cycling processes in the rhizosphere can be influenced by plant genetic variation within the growing season. Check it out!
November 2024- Excited to be invited to give a Departmental Seminar at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign!
October 2024 – Published work in Ecology Letters in collaboration with Dr. Bertolet at Rutgers Newark on how microbial interdependency changes in response to stress. Check it out!
August 2024- Avery Swanton becomes the first graduate student in the Favela lab! They plan to study the Saguaro microbiome. Welcome Avery!
August 2024 – Obtained some WAESO funding to start studying the nitrogen-cycling microbes associated with the tree canopy. Supporting Jose Marcos and Faythe Gomez to join the lab!
May 2024 – Undergraduate Biology Research Program (UBRP) scholars Yvonne Kan and Emily Herrera join the Favela lab!
May 2024 – Honored to be invited to speak at the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research Crop Health Webinar to talk about microbes and water.
April 2024 – Gave a talk at the Southwestern Branch Meeting of the American Society of Microbiology on what a century of Agriculture does to soil Microbiomes.
April 2024- Invited to speak at the Epsilon Eta Tau Chapter at the University of Arizona. Where I talked about my journey into science.
March 2024- Gave a recruitment talk to the Undergraduate Biology Research Program Recruitment an amazing program for UA undergrads to get involved in research.
February 2024 - Undergraduate researchers Pierson Nitz, Curry Curry, and Lily Bowdren joined the Favela lab to help get started.
January 2024 - I had the pleasure of being selected and participating in the 2024 SCIP Sci Comm Identities Project. I feel so incredibly lucky to be part of such an amazing cohort, and keep an eye out for the podcast!
January 2024 - Joining the Graduate Interdisciplinary Program in Ecosystem Genomics as a faculty member. Eager to join this interdisciplinary group of scholars.
January 2024 - Excited to announce that I will be joining the ranks of the associate editors at Phytobiomes.
January 2024 - The Favela lab is officially up and running! Very excited about this new career journey and future scientific discoveries!
September 2023 - Thrilled to share that a collaborative project accessing Planetary Health public education (K-12) has finally been published in the ProcB! Please check it out! Education in the Anthropocene: assessing planetary health science standards in the USA.
September 2023 - Biorxiv of recent work showing how genetic variation in maize contributes to differential microbiome recruitment, nitrification, and denitrification rates around plant roots.
June 2023 - We our exited to announce that our research on the effects of domestication on the functionally significant N-cycling microbiome of maize has been recognized with a Best Student Paper Award by APS Publications! We are so grateful to the Phytobiomes editorial board!
May 2023 - Our review on the application of plant extended phenotypes to manage the ag-microbiome has been accepted at Frontiers in Microbiomes! Check it out!
April 2023 - Favela Lab website is up-and-running in preparation for starting in the School of Plant Science at University of Arizona!
March 2023 - Loma Ridge Rhizosphere Project started collecting data in the Allison Lab!
August 2022 - Alonso Started a NSF PRFB recipient at the University of California Irvine with Steve Allison!
July 2022- Saying goodbye to the Kent and Bohn Lab's at UIUC! We will miss you all!
January 2022 - Press coverage on wild plant microbiomes! Did our ancestors have better microbiomes? For maize maybe!
March 2021 - Blog post I wrote about how maize breeding has altered the maize microbiome.
March 2021 - Press on our research about our quiet corn drama!