Students Win 2025-26 Funding from the N.C. PSI

The North Carolina Plant Sciences Initiative honored eight NC State University graduate students this fall with awards funded through the Norma L. Trolinder N.C. Plant Sciences Initiative Graduate Student Endowment and the David M. Peele PSI Graduate Student Support Fund.

Seven students from the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) and one from the College of Engineering (COE) were selected as 2025-26 winners. They are:

• Nora Sauers, a Ph.D. student in soil science, who studies basalt enhanced rock weathering on organic farms and its impact on greenhouse gas emissions and potential for permanent carbon sequestration. Her advisors are Alex Woodley in CALS’ Department of Crop and Soil Sciences and Joe Sagues in the Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering.
  
• Praneswar Ghosh, a Ph.D. student in soil science, who researches soil biogeochemical processes, particularly carbon stabilization and destabilization in soil. His advisor is Debjani Sihi in CALS’ departments of Plant and Microbial Biology and Crop and Soil Sciences.
  
• Cole Hammett, a master’s student in plant pathology, who uses drone imagery and deep learning to evaluate corn genotypes for disease resistance. His advisors are Peter Balint-Kurti, of CALS’ Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology, Joseph Gage, of CALS’ Department of Crop and Soil Sciences.
  
• Lauren Insko, a Ph.D. student in biochemistry, conducts functional protein research on lipid cleaving enzymes that are differentially expressed across maize. Her advisor is Rubén Rellán-Álvarez, of CALS’ Department of Molecular and Structural Biochemistry.
  
• Jarin Arline, a master’s student in plant pathology, who explores the use of hot water treatment to manage the guava root-knot nematode in sweetpotatoes. His advisor is Adrienne Gorny, of CALS’ Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology.
  
• Caitlin Kestell, a Ph.D. student in crop science, who studies genome editing for seedless fruits and hybrid seed production. Her advisor is Ralph Dewey of CALS’ Department of Crop and Soil Sciences.
  
• Alexis Suero Mirabal, a Ph.D. student in horticultural sciences, who focuses on high-throughput phenotyping in turfgrass and sweetpotatoes. His advisor is Jing Zhang of CALS’ Department of Horticultural Science.

• Teague McCracken, a Ph.D. student in electrical engineering, who explores genetic regulatory mechanisms in maize through developing machine learning algorithms to enable a high-throughput transformation screening platform. His advisor is Cranos Williams of the COE’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

About the Awards

The Trolinder and Peele funding supports graduate students by covering student fees and supplementing the cost of tuition, research, conference fees, professional memberships and conference travel.

Winners also are connected with mentors in industry and academia, and they also as online mentors to high school students who are undertaking research as part of the North Carolina Youth Institute.

In March 2023, Linda Trolinder created the endowment in her mother’s name. Norma Trolinder, a pioneer in the plant sciences, built a career as a preeminent cotton breeder in Texas. Linda Trolinder is also a plant sciences leader, having retired as BASF’s senior vice president of research and development of field crops, seeds and traits.

The Peele Support Fund enhances the education of undergraduate and graduate students associated with the N.C. PSI. David Peele is a retired agribusiness executive who co-founded Avoca, a botanical extracting company in Merry Hill. Peele earned two degrees from NC State, a bachelor’s degree in agricultural engineering and a doctorate in 1994, plus a master’s in soil science from Ohio State University. He serves on the boards of the North Carolina Agricultural Foundation and the North Carolina Agriculture and Life Sciences Research Foundation.

About the N.C. Plant Sciences Initiative

With over 100 faculty affiliates from nine NC State University colleges, the N.C. PSI brings together the brightest minds from academia, government and industry to solve complex agricultural challenges through interdisciplinary scientific discovery and innovation, extension outreach and engagement, and education and workforce development. It is part of NC State’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, with ties to the Office of University Interdisciplinary Programs.