PSM students and faculty participate in MSU Science Festival 2025 STEAM EXPO event
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EmailApril 5-6 STEM Building
PSM faculty, students and staff recently presented their passion for research to visitors at the annual MSU Science Festival STEAM Expo, April 5-6 2025 at the STEM Building on campus.
This event includes activities throughout the month of April , and featured a hands-on, get-up-close experiences with MSU plant research through the imaginations of PSM presenters on the weekend of April 5-6. Here is a sample of those activities:
SPORE (Student Phytopathological Organization for Research and Education) set the pace with a table that helped participants get a sample of life in the lab for a plant pathology student. Lead by Gloria Baker (Chilvers Lab) who believes that it is important do this kind of extracurricular work to educate the public, “especially young scientists on our research— and also for personal development,” Gloria said. “I knew going into graduate school that I wanted to develop soft skills regarding mentorship, public speaking, and outreach.” Gloria credits several students who helped prepare materials who and donated their cultures and plants (Keeley Setterfield, Ryan Hamilton, Madeline Anthony, Collette Ackley, Ethan Tippett, Lexi Hedger, Qiurong Fan, Austin McCoy, Ethan Wachendorf, and Giorgia Bastianelli). “Ryan Hamilton, Peyton Phillips and Madeline Anthony were a huge help with organizing materials the week before the event. Photo below: Qiurong Fan, Gloria Baker, Fidel Jiménez-Beitia,
Left: Peyton Phillips and Madeline Anthony take a moment from helping visitors use the scopes to pose. Right: Ryan Hamilton confers facts with Peyton Phillips for curious participants.
On the second floor of the STEM building, Gaëlle Cassin-Ross, Training and Outreach Coordinator, Plant Resilience Institute, organized a co-location at the event for several plant-research presentations. “It’s a great way to showcase the plant research at MSU for the public to learn about what we do here at MSU, and enjoy all the activities.”
At the table titled “Soil: A Medium for Life and Art,” horticulture graduate student Stephen Stresow brought inspiration gleaned from Kristen Kurtz, an artist and scientist and his teacher at Cornell University, to participants, who learn that soils can be used as paints. On Sunday afternoon, Stephen and PSM’s Rachel Drobnak (left, Sprunger Lab) helped visitors discover the secrets of painting with soil, which included filling in a clever a map of Michigan counties. “We started with about 500 of these little canvases,” Stephen said. “And we used them all!”
Across the aisle, Barret Wessel and undergraduate students Grace and Arianna from the soil judging team who introduced the concepts of organizing soil types to visitors with a series of samples and a list of the criteria used in competitions:
They also proudly showed off their soil painting and their soil club tee shirts to Michelle Hulin, whose lab presented their work in plant pathology at a table across the room. Here, Michelle and post-doc researcher Daniel Maddock (center, seated) and undergraduate research assistant Ambika Sharma, who is majoring in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology while getting a feel for real research and outreach! A busy day for all!
