Jul 24, 2025

Huck Students impress at Forest Genetics conference

Penn State grad students took the Forest Genetics 2025 conference by storm, winning more than half of the poster and presentation awards available. Three Huck trainees were among those recognized.

Penn State’s University Park campus recently hosted Forest Genetics 2025, the first-ever joint meeting of the Southern Forest Tree Improvement Committee (SFTIC) and the Northern and Western Forest Genetics Associations (NGFA, WFGA). The groups came together for four days from June 23 to 27 to collaborate under the theme “Harnessing Genetic Diversity for Resilient Forests.”

More than 160 participants were present at the conference, representing educational institutions, government bureaus, nonprofit organizations, and industry stakeholders from 26 U.S. states and seven countries. Attendees represented organizations as far flung as Skogforsk, the Forestry Research Institute of Sweden; Seoul National University in South Korea; and the United Kingdom’s Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew.

“The diversity of students—undergraduate and graduate—and faculty from Penn State and the region presenting leadership at the conference speaks to the wealth and quality of forest research at the University,” said Jill Hamilton, associate professor and director of the Schatz Center for Tree Molecular Genetics. “There is a real strength here in research incorporating biotechnology and genomics into forest health.”

Penn State grad students made a conspicuous impact, taking home more than half of the student prizes on offer.

Three Huck students were among the honorees, with Michelle Zavala Paez (Ecology) and Diego Del Orbe Matos (Plant Biology), both members of Hamilton’s lab, winning the WFGA Critchfield award for Best Overall Oral Presentation and SFTIC Squillace Award for Best Oral Presentation, respectively. Mary McCafferty (Ecology) of Laura Leites’ lab and Avalon Miller, a Penn State Plant Pathology grad student advised by Huck faculty member Cristina Rosa, secured van Buijtenen poster awards.

“The indoor sessions included 80 presentations, including six keynote addresses, with all but one followed by a featured student speaker,” said Hamilton. “Student support and recognition is a key component of each of the individual organizations, and it was an honor to come together and share this opportunity for them to shine.”

Additional information on the Forest Genetics 2025 Conference may be found on the event’s website.