April 2023- Congratulations to Isabella Qualls for receiving the 2023-2024 Hooper undergraduate research award!

January 2023- We welcome Mariola Barrera!, a new undergraduate research assistant in our group.

January 2023- We started the year giving 6 presentations and organizing the “Forest Tree Genomics” workshop at the Plant and Animal Genomes 30 conference in San Diego, CA. Looking forward to PAG next year!

October 2022- Welcome Pablo Pelaez! Pablo has joined our lab as a new bioinformatician and postdoctoral researcher to work in our recently funded NSF CAREER award.

September 2022- Welcome Brooke Harris and Nylah Edwards, new undergraduate research assistants!

August 2022- We welcome Sean Collins as a new PhD student in our group! Sean will be studying genome-wide levels of diversity and drought tolerance in Ponderosa pine.

July 2022- Welcome Isabella Qualls!, a new undergraduate lab assistant in our group.

June 2022- Laura gave a presentation called “Transcriptomic response to white pine blister rust infection in whitebark pine seedlings at the North American Forest Genetics Society Conference in Monterey, California.

April 2022- Congratulations to Kailey Baesen (MSc student) for receiving the Kay R and Irene S Hafen Scholarship at the NAU School of Forestry!

April 2022- Congratulations to Amanda Fitzhugh for presenting her HURA research “Douglas fir hybridization, growth and stomatal study” at the NAU Undergraduate Symposium! Amanda is graduating this Spring 2022 at the School of Forestry.

April 2022- Congratulations to Lino Reyes for getting the HURA undergraduate research award!

April 2022- Welcome Laura (new postdoctoral researcher) to our group!

March 2022- The Pine genomes book was published by Springer. The first book to compile advances in genomics, transcriptomics and epigenomics after the sequencing of the pine genomes. Thank you to all the >70 authors who contributed with book chapters!

January 2022- Dr. De La Torre’s NSF Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) was featured by NAU News: “Forest geneticist awarded 1.2M NSF CAREER grant to study Douglas fir hybridization, genomics and adaptation to climate change”.

December 2021- Dr. De La Torre has been awarded an NSF Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) for 5 years! CAREER awards are the most prestigious awards for early career faculty in the US.

December 2021- Our research in coast redwood and giant sequoia has been featured by NAU News: “Mapping the Redwood Genome“, and by Save the Redwoods league: ” Completed Redwood Genome Sequence Reveals Genes for Climate Adaptation and Offers insights into Genetic Basis for Survival“

November 2021- Three new papers in giant sequoia and coast redwood have been published in The Plant Journal, G3 and Genes (see publications).

October 2021- Welcome to our new undergrad researchers: Sharon, Lino and Andrew.

September 2021- Welcome Kailey to our group.

April 2021- Congratulations to Amanda Fitzhugh for getting the prestigious HURA undergraduate research award.

January 2021- Our paper “Dissecting the polygenic basis of cold adaptation in Douglas-fir” has been published in Genes on January 18th!

August 2020- Our new Epigenomics project was featured by the American Association for Advancement of Science (AAAS): “Forest geneticist receives $810,000 grant to study disease resistance in sugar pines”, by Science Magazine and by NAU News.

August 2020- Our epigenomics research has been featured as “The Tweet of the Week” by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA). Thank you @USDA-NIFA for featuring our research at the NIFA bulletin Aug26 !.

August 2020- The “Spruce Genome book” is published!! An amazing collection of research chapters from some of the most renowned forest geneticists around the world. This book was edited by Dr. Porth (U Laval) and Dr. De La Torre and published by Springer.

August 2020- The Whitebark Pine Ecosystem Foundation has launched the Whitebark Pine Genome Initiative, a collaborative effort among our lab, several universities, the US Forest service and the BC Ministry of Forests, to develop genomic resources to restore white bark pine stands throughout western US.

July 2020- Matthew published his thesis research at the Plant Journal, and defended his Master’s thesis during the same month!

January 2020- Ben and Matthew gave excellent presentations at the PAG meeting in San Diego.

August 2019- We received an USDA/NIFA award to study epigenomics of disease resistance in sugar pine!. Please see the description of the project in the Research section.

June 2019- Dr. De La Torre was a keynote speaker at the IUFRO Tree Biotechnology meeting in Raleigh, North Carolina

April 2019- Ben’s presentation on the “Genome-wide association of cold related traits in Douglas fir” has been accepted for presentation at the Ecological Society of America meeting in Louisville this August.

March 8th, 2019- Our research paper at PNAS (Lin et al. 2018) was featured at the NAU website!

January 2019- Our research paper at New Phytologist (De La Torre et al. 2019) was featured by a Commentary paper in the same issue by Dr. Casola (Texas A & M).

January 2019- Dr. De La Torre was an invited speaker at the “Evolution of genome size” session at the Plant and Animal Genome XXVII meeting in San Diego.

Top image credits: De La Torre et al. 2019.Genome Biology and Evolution.