Technician, Graduate Student, and Postdoc accomplishments
2026: Ben Sheppard is awarded the Frye-Hotson-Rigg Fellowship (UW Biology)! Congrats Ben!
August 2025: Natalia Guayazán-Palacios, the lab’s first graduate student, leaves to start a postdoc with Lena Mueller at the Salk Institute. Good luck Natalia!
2025: Ben Sheppard receives a travel award to present his work on RLCKs in plant immune responses to herbivory at the 25th Conference of the International Plant Growth Substance Association (IPGSA2025)
2025: Postdoc Di “Woody” Wu presents “Plug-and-Play: Engineering Inceptin Receptor (INR) into Soybeans Confers Herbivore Recognition and Resistance” at the Soybean Molecular Biology and Genetics Conference in Madison, WI
May 2024: Technician Brian Behnken presents “Plant Cell Surface Receptor for Herbivory Mediates Attraction of Predatory Wasps” at the Mary Gates Undergraduate Research Symposium
2024: Natalia Guayazán-Palacios receives an Inclusivity Scholar award and presents her research at the International Conference on Arabidopsis Research (ICAR 2024)
September 2023: Technician Wesley George leaves after 3 total years in UW Biology (2 as an undergraduate, 1 as a technician) for graduate school at UC Riverside! Best of luck!
May 2023: Natalia Guayazan-Palacios is awarded a USDA Predoctoral Fellowship to fund the remainder of graduate study! Congrats!
August 2022: Simon Snoeck was selected to speak at the 10th International Workshop on Plant Peptides and Receptors (possibly the only American lab represented at the meeting!) Congrats Simon!
July 2022: Natalia Guayazán-Palacios gives a talk on plant-herbivore interactions at Plant Biology 2022 in Portland, OR, and 4 lab members present posters!
May 2022: Anthony Garcia and Tonio Chaparro are pursuing PhDs in Plant Biology. Tonio will head to Plant & Microbial Biology at UC Berkeley, while Anthony will rejoin UW Biology PhD program in the fall. Congrats!
Apr 2022: Technicians Anthony Garcia and Tonio Chaparro are awarded the NSF GRFP!!!
Nov 2021: Natalia Guayazan-Palacios is awarded a 2021 SACNAS Student Presentation Award!!
July 2021: Simon Snoeck, Natalia Guayazán-Palacios, and Anthony Garcia give talks at Plant Biology 2021, and Ava Kloss-Schmidt presents a poster!
Mar 2021: Simon Snoeck is awarded the Mary Race Bevis Postdoctoral Research Award (UW Biology)
Mar 2021: Natalia Guayazan-Palacios is awarded the Heerensperger and Walter & Margaret Sargent Awards (UW Biology)
2020: Simon Snoeck is awarded a Belgian American Educational Foundation (BAEF) Postdoctoral Fellowship
Undergraduate accomplishments
May 2026: JT Dugan and Korina Medina present their research at the Mary Gates Undergraduate Research Symposium!
Autumn 2025: Anna Perfetti is awarded the Porath-Johnson Scholarship (UW Biology)! Congrats Anna!
May 2025: Euan McCubbin presents his research at the Mary Gates Undergraduate Research Symposium!
March 2025: Euan McCubbin was awarded the Mary Gates Undergraduate Research Scholarship! Congrats Euan!
December 2024: Euan McCubbin was awarded the Frye Hotson Rigg departmental award
June 2024: Hannah Luskin will start a position as lab manager at the Innovative Genomics Institute at UC Berkeley!
Autumn 2022: Nathan Greenwood is awarded the May Garrett Hayes Scholarship (UW Biology)
June 2022: Ava will graduate and join the Rhee lab at the Carnegie Institute in Palo Alto, CA. Congrats Ava!
May 2022: Karyn Tindbaek will join the Metzger lab at Pacific Northwest Research Institute as a technician. Good luck Karyn!
May 2022: Hannah, Karyn, Nathan, and Ava presented at the lab’s first in-person Undergraduate Research Symposium. Great work!
Mar 2022: Ava Kloss-Schmidt is awarded the Mary Gates Fellowship
Mar 2022: Ava Kloss-Schmidt is awarded the May Garrett Hayes and Varanasi Scholarships (UW Biology)
May 2021: Anthony Garcia presents “Developing a Fluorescent Reporter for Characterizing the Plant HAMP Receptor INR” at the Mary Gates Undergraduate Research Symposium
Mar 2021: Anthony Garcia is awarded the May Garrett Hayes Scholarship (UW Biology)
Mar 2021: Anthony Garcia is awarded the Mary Gates Fellowship
Jan 2021: Ava Kloss-Schmidt is awarded the John & Dorothy Franco Award and Frye-Hotson-Rigg Award (UW Biology)
Jan 2021: Anthony Garcia is awarded the Frye-Hotson-Rigg Award (UW Biology)
May 2020: Anthony Garcia presents “Developing Genetically Encoded Reporters for Plant Immune Recognition of Herbivory” at the Mary Gates Undergraduate Research Symposium
Mar 2020: Anthony Garcia is awarded the Undergraduate Excellence in Biology Scholarship (UW Biology)
Jan 2020: Anthony Garcia is awarded the Donald S Farner Scholarship (UW Biology)
Steinbrenner Lab Mentorship Policies
Our goal is to understand plant immunity through reading, discussion, and experimentation, and then share insights with the world. As a Principal Investigator I hope to mentor the next generation of plant biologists. I aim to excite and challenge mentees and to build curiosity, skill, and independence. I work to maintain an environment where trainees can build these foundations in a safe and welcoming space. Lab members will have opportunities to network with other plant biology labs in UW Biology and around campus.
I work hard to set expectations and goals with all rotation students and permanent lab members. We use four mechanisms beyond regular meetings:
- Upon joining the lab, we will review expectations in the lab handbook. (I am happy to share the latest version – please ask me for the link!)
- Within a few weeks of joining the lab, we will discuss a Mentorship Compact based on UW Biology’s guidelines to set logistical and mentorship expectations.
- Individual Development Plan (IDP) completed within three months of joining the lab permanently. The IDP is meant to set personal and professional goals, determine if you have sufficient resources, and discuss other possible mentors or training. The mentee is expected to revise the IDP at least yearly. We will set aside an hour to revise at least once a year. Here is an example format.
- Quarterly IDP check-ins – at the end of each quarter, we will structure our one-on-one meeting to discuss progress toward year goals and if any resources or changes would help to meet goals.
Numbers
Since the lab opened at UW in 2019, we have trained (as of September 2026):
- 31 undergraduate researchers, including 28 in the past five years
- 4 postdocs, 3 graduate students, and 5 technicians
- 6 graduate rotation students
- 1 high school volunteer
Before starting the lab, Adam directly supervised 11 undergraduates at UC San Diego, UC Berkeley, and Tufts University.