Meet Our Students
The primary purpose of the ELIAS Fellowship program is to support talented students working at the intersection of data science/applied statistics and the crop and environmental sciences. Each year, we bring on up to 4 students as fellows, and these students conduct research under a research mentor in an area of interest to them. Read about our fellows' research below.
Cohort 3: 2022 - 2024
Mary-Margaret Benware
Mary-Margaret is a senior in Biological Sciences at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. Her research area is data-driven phenology and monitoring. She has conducted laboratory studies looking at the phenylpropanoid pathway in maize, and she used this information to conduct a genome-wide association study and a genomic selection study to determine if these tools might be able to be used to assist plant breeders. She is currently working on a GIS project using Sentinel data to measure changes in vegetative cover over time and how those changes may be tied to disruptions in food supply networks.
Milena Di Blasi
Milena is a junior in Biochemistry at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. Her research area is environmental toxicology. She has worked on a variety of projects in this area, ranging from surveys to analysis of open-source datasets. Her independent study focuses on the use of high performance liquid chromatography - mass spectrometry techniques to monitor toxin accumulation in the soil environment. As part of this research, she will be using machine learning methods to classify different soil contaminants based on their long-term behavior and other chemical attributes when introduced into a soil ecosystem.
Ugo Eleonu
Ugo is a senior in Mechanatronics and Robotics Engineering at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. His research interests are in the use of robotic technologies to capture and monitor crops throughout the growing season. His ultimate goal is to use technology to help farmers make informed management decisions. His research project combines data science, mechanical engineering, robotics, and remote sensing to support field research.
Brandon Sharp
Brandon is a junior in Computer Science at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. His research area lies in the development of computational tools to support geospatial research, particularly in the environmental sciences. He is currently working on a project that automatically creates optimal field maps for each individual polygon within a shapefile.
Cohort 2: 2021 - 2023
Jessica Hendrickson
Jessica graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a B.S. in Crop Sciences in May 2023. Her research examined the impact of cattle grazing of cover crops on soil stability and aggregation. Her hope is that the results of her research will provide valuable insights into the potential benefits and limitations of grazing cover crops as a soil conservation strategy and will help inform land managers and policymakers.
Mirai Inaoka
Mirai graduated with her B.S. in Crop Sciences from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in May 2023. During her time as an ELIAS fellow, Mirai worked on projects in a molecular genetics laboratory, in the greenhouse, and on a computer. Her independent study project focused on leaf angle and tassel branch number in corn because both of these traits are important for improving yields. She conducted a genome-wide association study to identify potential molecular markers associated with these two traits. After graduation, Mirai went on to pursue her Master's degree at the University of Ohio.
Tyson Lobb
Tyson graduated with his bachelor's degree in Bioloical Sciences from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville in May 2023. During his time as an ELIAS fellow, Tyson worked at the intersection of the crop and environmental sciences and human health. His first project examined the variability of nutraceutical compounds in corn and whether genomic modeling techniques could be used to predict which corn varieites were best suited for the produciton of nutraceuticals. His independent study examined the effect of statin contamination in the environment and the persistence of statins in our soil ecosystems. After graduating, Tyson began his PhD program at St. Louis University.
Peace Osikoya
Peace Osikoya is a senior in Biological Sciences at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. Her research interests lie at the intersection of environmental science, data tools, and human health. Her research focused on the genetic variability in corn for two phenylpropanoids that are tied directly to human health, ferulic acid and p-coumaric acid. Peace's interest in these compounds was spiked because of their known relationship with cardiovascular disease prevention. During her project, she identified clusters of inbred parents with consistent concentrations of phenylpropanoids, and she is hopeful that this information can be used to help guide plant breeders who are working in biofortification of corn and other cereal crops. After graduating in December 2023, Peace is planning to continue her studies as a Master's student.
Cohort 1: 2019 - 2021
Leo D'Agostino
Leo graduated with his bachelor's degree in Crop Sciences from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in May 2021. During his time as an ELIAS fellow, Leo's research focused on the use of genome editing tools to improve horticultural crops. Since graduating, Leo has gone on to pursue his PhD and works at the Institute for Genomics for Crop Abiotic Stress Tolerance at Texas Tech University.
Sam Garcia
Sam graduated with her bachelor's degree in Biology from Northeastern Illinois University in May 2021. During her time as an ELIAS fellow, Sam conducted research related to the health of the waterways near and in Chicago. As part of her research, she characterized the diversity of microfauna living in those waterways and used this as an indicator of the overall health of these aquatic systems. She also researched whether interventions, such as floating plant beds, could be used to help support the overall health of the aquatic systems near and in Chicago. After graduating, Sam went on to pursue her Master's of Science degree in Natural Resources and Environmental Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Logan Stenger
Logan graduated with her bachelor's degree in Crop Sciences from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in May 2021. While there, she focused on a number of projects related to sustainable crop management and value-added crops. Her research included working in a biochemistry laboratory to quantify different value-added metabolites in corn and in Brassica species, as well as working at a field site to examine the effect of different management strategies on crop productivity. Upon graduating, Logan took a position working as a Production Associate for an international agricultural company.
Kevin Zhang
Kevin graduated with his bachelor's degree in Computer Science + Crop Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in May 2021. During his time as an ELIAS fellow, Kevin gained skills that were directly in alignment with his major, as he worked at the intersection of crop science and computational biology. Kevin's research culminated in a paper examining how well multivariate and univariate genome-wide association study models could distinguish between true and spurious pleiotropy. Since graduating, Kevin has since been hired as a software engineer.
Are you interested in applying? If so, click here to download the application.
The ELIAS Fellowship Program was funded thanks to the generosity of the USDA-NIFA-AFRI. Award Number 2019-67032-31623.
