Posted: May 19, 2021
Terry Torres-Cruz, a plant pathology and biogeochemistry graduate student in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences, was selected as a recipient of the 2021 Lewis and Clark Fund for Exploration and Field Research grant.
Terry Torres-Cruz
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – Terry Torres-Cruz, a plant pathology and biogeochemistry graduate student in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences, was selected as a recipient of the 2021 Lewis and Clark Fund for Exploration and Field Research grant.
The Lewis and Clark Fund for Exploration and Field Research is provided to doctoral students by the American Philosophical Society to encourage exploratory field studies for the collection of specimens and data and to provide the imaginative stimulus that accompanies direct observation.
The $5,000 grant will assist Torres-Cruz in covering expenses for fieldwork in Guyana, which is planned for December 2021. Her work describes a putative fungal mimicry system associated with the production of flower-like structures on yellow-eyed grasses (Xyridaceae) and seeks to describe this newly discovered disease and its potential effect on insect attraction to plants.
Torres-Cruz is co-advised by David Geiser, professor in the Department of Plant Pathology and Environmental Microbiology, and Mary Ann Bruns, associate professor in the Department of Ecosystem Science and Management.
