2026¶
August 2026 — Joined the Department of Microbiology at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville as an Assistant Professor. The Shao Lab is open and recruiting — funded postdoctoral positions, graduate students for Fall 2027, and undergraduate researchers.
2026 — Co-PI on a Department of Energy Genesis Mission award ($585K, Phase I): “Transforming subsurface prediction with an autonomous, multi-agent AI workflow for multi-scale coupled bio-hydrogeochemical modeling.”
2025¶
December 2025 — Invited talk at the AGU Fall Meeting in New Orleans on mycorrhizae-explicit ecosystem modeling, and convened Session B068 on peatland carbon cycling with Daniel Ricciuto, Xiaoying Shi, and Randall Kolka.
December 2025 — Research seminar at the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, University of Georgia.
October 2025 — Invited paper published in JGR: Biogeosciences as part of the “Biogeosciences Leaders of Tomorrow” special collection, and featured on AGU’s Eos Research Spotlight: How Plant-Fungi Friendships Are Changing.
July 2025 — Invited talk at the LBNL–LLNL mini-workshop on soil CDR measurement, reporting, and verification.
2025 — Selected as a member of MicrobeNet^Net, an NSF AccelNet project advancing international collaboration in plant–microbe interaction research.