Texas A&M College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
Chappell Lab
Department of Plant Pathology and Microbiology

Timothy Martin

About Me

I am a first year PhD student at Texas A&M University.  I graduated from St. Olaf College in Northfield, MN in 2017 with a B.A. in Biology.  I then went to Illinois State University where I completed a M.S. in plant ecology in 2021 under the direction of Dr. Victoria Borowicz with a thesis titled “In Defense of Plants: Salicylic Acid in a Host-Parasite-Pathogen System.”  During which time I completed a graduate certificate in geographic information systems.

I am interested in the ecological factors impacting pathogenesis,  especially as it relates to spatial patterns of pathogen interaction in both agricultural and natural settings.  In the Chappell lab, I have been working on characterizing the environment around cotton fleahopper collection sites to determine if the land use in areas surrounding fleahopper populations impacts the abundance of fleahoppers.

2022 Conference on Soilborne Plant Pathogens

Roy was invited to present his work at the Conference on Soilborne Plant Pathogens held virtually on March 22 and 23, 2022. He presented research related to his work with the spatial and temporal variation of FOV4. Roy was also one of four recipients of the Martin Stoner Memorial Fellowship.

2022 Student Research Week

Roy presented his research at the 2022 Student Research Week (SRW) held at the Memorial Students Center at Texas A&M University. His presentation won first place in the Graduate Oral Presentations in the Agriculture division.

2022 APS Southern Division Conference

Roy presented his research virtually to an audience at the 2022 American Phytopathological Society Southern Division Conference in Chatanooga, TN. 

Roy’s Dissertation Defense

Roy successfully defended his dissertation, titled “Characterizing Inoculum Density and Plant Phenotypic Variation At High Spatial Resolution”, on March 9, 2022.

 

Welcoming a New Lab Member

Tim Martin officially joined the Chappell Lab in January 2022. He comes to us from Illinois State University, where he got his master’s degree in Biology, studying plant ecology with Dr. Victoria Borowicz in 2021.

Candidacy

Manjari passed her PhD preliminary exam on Dec 13, advancing to candidacy.

Presenting at Entomology 2021

I presented at Entomology 2021, the annual meeting of the Entomological Society of America (Oct 31-Nov 3; Denver, CO). Here’s a picture of me beside my poster, entitled “Phenology modeling of cotton fleahopper nymph emergence from woolly croton”. I placed second in the graduate poster competition in the Invasive Species and Vectors category.

Programming data loggers

BURS scholar Charlie Hickman (working with graduate student Manjari) assembles and programs data loggers that will be deployed in the field for collecting data related to his work with cotton fleahoppers.

 

2021 PLPM Graduate poster symposium

I presented some of my preliminary results related to cotton fleahoppers at the annual graduate poster symposium hosted by the department (PLPM, TAMU) on April 21, winning second place in the early career category. It was a great experience interacting with the other graduate students and getting to know more about their research.