News and activities

2025

February 05    Jianwei was invited to join a panel titled "Building workforce sustainability" at the "Higher Education's Path to Sustainability and Resilience" workshop hosted by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) in Washington DC.

January 10    Monica Gaire joined the lab as a Master degree aspirant. Welcome onboard!

2024

December 09-12       Lahiru, Matthew, and Aviyan attended the 2024 AGU annual meeting in Washington DC.
December 05-06       Jianwei participated in a USDA NRCS workshop in Denver CO. 
November 09-22       Matthew and Jianwei attended the United Nations Climate Conference or Convention of Parties (COP29) in Baku Azerbaijan; As a teaching Fellow, Matthew presided a press conference for the NSF supported Climate Leaders Academy (CLA) at the COP. Congratulations to Matthew and this year's CLA cohort!
September 09-11       Jianwei presented his work on soil microbial model at the Soil System Ecology International Conference in Berlin Germany.
June 05       Matthew and Jianwei gave a guest lecture and showcased a demonstration of soil respiration measurement to a group of high school students at the Glencliff High School, Nashville TN.
May 23-26       Matthew and Jianwei attended the 2nd Climate Leaders Academy (CLA) workshop held at the Woodwell Climate Research Center in Woods Hole. The PIs and graduate team along with twelve brilliant CLA fellows had a great gathering with a goal to pave the way to thrive at the COP29 at Baku Azerbaijan this November.
May 07       Matthew, Aviyan, Lahiru, and Jianwei conducted roadside soil and plant sampling in six widely-distributed locations in Nashville.
April 12        The National Climate Change Roadmap (NCCR) was released and Jianwei is honored to be one of the working group members. The full report can be found here . 
April 06-09    Xuehan, Jonathan, Lahiru, and Jianwei attended the 2024 ARD Research Symposium held in Nashville TN. Most impressively, Dr. Kevin Kephart, the Deputy Director of the Institute of Bioenergy, climate, and environment emphasized environmental justice (EJ) in all research, extension and education programs. The top two key area to improve are Participatory Science, and Data collection related to EJ.
April 03       Xuehan, Matthew, Jonathan and Aviyan attended the 3-Minute-Thesis (3MT) competition during the Graduate Student Appreciation Week at TSU. Congratulations to Matthew who was rewarded the top three winners!
March 29    The former Ph.D. student Siyang's manuscript was accepted in the Journal of Geophysical Research - Biogeosciences (JGRB) , and the teamwork has received tremendous support from colleagues at the University of Oklahoma, Oak Ridge National Lab, and Wuhan University . Congratulations to all and cheers for the wonderful collaboration!
March 26    Jianwei attended the " Increasing Resilience to Climate Variability on Agricultural Land in Tennessee" webinar hosted by TSU and USDA Southeast Climate Hub. Click here for the Climate Adaptation tools and resources. 
March 15     Jianwei received the Outstanding Graduate Student Mentor Award in the College of Agriculture, Tennessee State University. "Inspiring Everyone Around You" and "Inspiring Others is like Being Inspired by Others"!
March 14     Jianwei served as a co-author on a recently accepted manuscript that addressed how Switchgrass's photosynthesis responds to different precipitation treatments, e.g., dry and wet conditions. 
March 04     Matthew, Aviyan, Lahiru, and Jianwei conducted the first roadside sampling at a location about one mile north to the TSU main campus. see photos in Gallery. 
February 24    Jianwei and Jonathan served as the event supervisors at the Science Olympiad for middle and high schoolers at Tennessee State University.
February 07    The research team's manuscript was accepted in the European Journal of Soil Biology, and it explored the effects of altered precipitation regimes on soil respiration and the underlying microbial processes. 
January 16    Aviyan Pandey and Matthew Manu joined the lab as the Master and Ph.D. degrees aspirants. Welcome onboard!

2023

December 1-12    Jianwei attended the COP28 in Dubai UAE, during which he and a few other faculty members from four different universities led a cohort of 12 students from diverse universities including TSU in participating and hosting various events and activities.

December 07    Jianwei was awarded a  certificate  for having successfully completed the Climate Law and Governance Specialization Course by the University of Cambridge and University of Dubai. Please check  here  for the certificate.

August 28    Congratulations to Xuehan who has been chosen to receive a scholarship to attend the Women in Agribusiness Summit in Nashville on September 26-28, 2023. The scholarship program was established to recognize outstanding students passionate about agribusiness careers.

July 11-13     Jianwei was invited to attend the Horizon Scan Workshop in Denver Colorado.  

June 28     The USDA-NIFA funded warming and nitrogen fertilization research plots were officially launched today!

June 16     The power for the heaters at the warming and nitrogen plots was turned on at 3.20 pm! The experiment was officially tested!

June 08-11     Jianwei attended and presented at the Climate Leadership Academy (CLA) kickoff workshop at L'Anse, Michigan. What an amazing experience! Go the 2023 CLA fellows!

June 05-16     Xuehan attended the in-person 6th Training Course on New Advances in Land Carbon Cycle Modeling at Cornell University.

June 01     The University's application for the observer status of United Nations Framework Convention in Climate Change (UNFCCC) was successfully submitted online.

April 13     Jianwei coauthored an article published in Global Change Biology Bioenergy comparing eastern gamagrass and switchgrass biomass and forage quality under a range of management practice. see detail in Publication.  

April 06     Jianwei received the 2023 College of Agriculture Outstanding Researcher Faculty Award.

March 28     Jonathan passed his proposal defense, congratulations!

January 25     The research team's second video article " Simulating Temperature in a Soil Incubation Experiment " is available online.

2022

September 13     The research team's video article was accepted in the Journal of Visualized Experiments (JOVE). This is a second of this type since the first article and video published in JOVE.

September 02     Jianwei and Siyang (a former PhD student)'s coauthored article was published online, which explored the contrasting impacts of organic and conventional agriculture on soil respiration and microbial biomass. See the article in Publication.

August 25     Jianwei was interviewed on WKRN-TV about climate change and flood mitigation in Nashville.

August 24     Welcome new lab members, Alford Jonathan (master student), Naomi Von Bose (Dean's Scholar), and Kylan Clark (Biology undergraduate researcher)!

August 23   The Climate Change, Biogeochemistry, and Bioenergy (CBB) journal club will start this Friday (08/26), which conforms a biweekly schedule. See here for details.

August 18     A PhD research assistant position is available. Click here for details.

July 21      Jianwei received a research award from DOE.

June-July   Jianwei visited the University of Landau at Germany and Rothamsted Research at United Kingdom.

May 31      Hanwei, a PhD student in Environmental Engineering from University of Wisconsin - Madison, visited our lab for a TSU-UWM joint project in soil sensor development. Welcome to Nash Vegas!

March 22   Jianwei participated in the Ag day at the State Capital Hill demonstrating his portable soil CO2 analyzer to legislature and policy makers.

February 16   Xuehan's manuscript was accepted in the Journal of Plant Nutrition and Soil Science (JPNSS).

2021

December 13-17   Precious, Xuehan, and Jianwei gave poster or oral presentations at the Annual American Geophysical Union meeting held in New Orleans LA, and their presentations were made virtually for the first time!

December 03   Congratulations to Precious who passed her final defense!

November 05   Jiacong Zhou joined the lab as a visiting PhD student. Welcome on board, Jiacong !

October 29   Congratulations to Xuehan who passed her proposal defense!

October 04  A field campaign was conducted to prepare site for plots set for the funded USDA NIFA project. See gallery for details.

September 02   Lahiru gave a virtual presentation at the Tennessee State University Small Farm Expo.

July 28   Jianwei was invited to give a talk to a group of soil and ecosystem ecologists, postdoc and graduate students at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

July 25-27   Jianwei visited the Grassland, Soil and Water Research Laboratory of USDA ARS at Temple TX.

June 04  Jianwei received a research award from NSF.

May 25-26  Jianwei was invited to attend the TN Climate Data Summit virtual meeting and gave a short presentation about his climate change research at TSU. Click here for the program information.

May 17   The soil warming experiment was officially launched at the TSU campus farm today!

May 06   Jianwei was invited to join the Editorial Board of Applied Soil Ecology .

May 04   Jianjun's manuscript was accepted in Global Change Biology Bioenergy (GCBB), which elucidated that soil extracellular oxidases mediated soil organic carbon sequestration under nitrogen fertilization in bioenergy croplands.

April 30   Jianwei received a research award from USDA.

March 16   Power is being introduced to the research plots. see Gallery for progress and details.

January 07   Xuehan Wang joined the lab as a master student. Welcome aboard, Xuehan!

2020

November 29   Congratulations to Ms . Min (Amy) Yuan who accomplished her one-year visit at TSU!

October 23   Min's manuscript was accepted in Scientific Reports, which elucidated the individual and interactive effects of nitrogen fertilization and bioenergy crop types on spatiotemporal patterns of soil glycosidases.

October 16   Precious passed her master proposal defense. Congratulations!

October 16   Precious's abstract was accepted in 14th Annual Graduate Climate Conference which is to be held virtually this year.

October 14   Siyang's manuscript was accepted in Nature Communications , which found out the long-term incubation data (>1.5 year) could improve the model projection of decade-long soil organic carbon dynamics under climate warming. Jianwei is the corresponding author.

August 25   Christian and Jaila joined the lab as the TLSAMP undergraduate research fellows.

August 19   Jianwei was awarded the Certificate of Recognition of Platinum Level Scholar at Tennessee State University.

June 11   Siyang and Madhav passed their final defenses today. Congratulations!

May 27   Jianwei was invited to present and serve as a panelist at the 2020 TSU Summer Virtual Writing Workshop.

March 13   Siyang was awarded the 2020 Environmental System Science (ESS) PI meeting student travel fellowship sponsored by Department of Energy (DOE). Congrats, SY!

March 07   Jianwei was appointed as Associate Editor for Journal of Plant Nutrition and Soil Science ( JPNSS ).

March 06   Jianwei was awarded the certificate of Climate Change and Health Program by the Yale School of Public health. Click the certificate here .

March 06   Jianwei's manuscript was accepted in PLOS ONE and it elucidated that nitrogen fertilization elevated topsoil organic carbon and nitrogen contents in switchgrass and gamagrass croplands, which however was likely driven by different mechanisms.

January 21   A full day training of Li-Cor 8100 analyzer was successfully conducted at the College of Agriculture. Thanks to all participants from various research labs and groups!

January 13, Jianwei's manuscript was accepted in Scientific Reports and it elucidated that nitrogen fertilizer, lack other management practices such as tillage, could restructure the spatial patterns of soil organic carbon and total nitrogen in bioenergy croplands.

2019

December 09   Min (Amy) Yuan joined the lab as a visiting scholar. Welcome on board, Amy!

October 18   Jianwei was invited to give a seminar talk at the Department of Biological Sciences at TSU.
October 16   Jianwei was invited to give a guest lecture to the Climate Change and Global Response class at Vanderbilt University.

September 01   Congratulations to Dr. Jianjun Duan who accomplished his one-year visit at TSU! 

August 26   Jahnari Edwards (a Dean's scholar) and Dilovan Hayha (a Biology senior) joined our lab as undergraduate researchers. Welcome aboard! 

July 25   Jianwei received a research award from USDA.

July 17    Our research progress was reported in the Farm World, click here for details.

June 21   Jianwei coauthored on an article accepted in Science of the Total Environment, which revealed the influence of extreme climate events (i.e., hurricanes) on the nature of dissolved organic matter in rivers across states in Southern US.

May 22   One MS and two PhD graduate student positions are available in the lab. Please check the position announcement.

May 22   Jianwei received a research award from NSF.

April 09   Jianwei received the Outstanding Young Research Award from College of Agriculture at TSU.

April 03   Jianwei and Siyang coauthored on an article recently published in Environmental Pollution, which explored the effects of fly ash application on plant biomass and element accumulations based on a meta-analysis. 

March 21   Our lab research work was reported in the news media, Vanderbilt Political Review. Click here for details. 

March 05   Siyang received the 2019 Environmental System Science (ESS) PI meeting student travel fellowship award sponsored by Department of Energy (DOE). Congratulations, SY!

February 15   Madhav passed his Master proposal defense, congratulations MP!

January 08   The lab's first video article is published online ( click here ), which provides a spatially-explicit and quantitative way to sample soils in a research plot. Cheers for the team work! Thanks to Maggie Syversen, Siyang Jian and Madahav Parajuli!!