Dr. Jaya R. Soneji
Dr. Soneji worked as an Ag. Senior Research Scientist in Dr. Randall’s lab. She has worked extensively in the field of plant breeding, tissue culture, and genetic engineering of economically important fruit, tree and ornamental crops. She also has experience and research interests in plant propagation, germplasm evaluation, marker-assisted selection, functional genomics, virus–based vectors, and host-pathogen interactions. Jaya is now working for a biotech company in St. Louis, Missouri.
Dr. Rio Stamler
Rio worked as a post-doctoral associate in the Randall Lab. His research focused on plant pathology, including molecular identification and characterization of new and emerging pathogens, and evaluation of novel beneficial microbes for use in crop systems. Rio received his BS and MS in Agricultural Biology and completed a PhD in Molecular Biology in May 2014 under Dr. Jennifer Randall. Rio is now working for a biotech company.
Dr. Jorge Angeles
Jorge completed his PhD in 2011. He completed two post-doc fellowships in San Francisco and is currently working at the Philippine Islands Genomic Institute.
Deborah Sowder
Deb graduated from NMSU with her B.S. in Horticulture in May of 2016 and worked in the Randall Lab from 2014 to 2017. During her time in the lab, she worked on pecan fertilization and micropropagation, as well as projects on the pecan microbiome and the unique responses of different genotypes to fertilization. Deb is currently a graduate student at Colorado State University and studies drought-tolerant vegetable cultivars.
Esteban Molina
Esteban is currently a student at NMSU from Los Lunas, New Mexico. In May 2016, he completed his bachelor’s degree in agricultural biology, and in June 2018, he graduated with his master’s degree in plant pathology. Esteban started working in the lab the summer of 2014.
Hijiri Yamagata
Hijiri Yamagata is a visiting student from the University of Tokyo. He is a student of the department of civil engineering of the graduate school of engineering at the University of Tokyo. He graduated from Shibaura Institute of Technology in May of 2016 with his Bachelors of Civil Engineering. After graduation, he is studying Remote Sensing with UAV at Dr. Oki’s lab at the University of Tokyo. In April 2017, he joined Dr. Randall’s lab to observe Pecan orchards.
Adriana Rascon
Adriana completed her MS in 2014. She currently works for NMDA in Albuquerque, NM.
Silvanna Franscetti
Silvana completed her B.S. in December 2013. She is currently at Harvard Medical School.
Miranda Valverde-Butler
Miranda is completing her B.S. in Fish and Wildlife. She worked in the Randall Lab for 3.5 years and now works with the US Forestry Service.
Jose Herrera
Jose completed his B.S. in December of 2013. He is currently a private business owner.
Jason French
Jason completed his M.S. in 2010. He previously ran the Plant Diagnostic clinic at NMSU and is pursuing a PhD.
Griselda A. Saucedo
Griselda completed her B.S in Mechanical Engineering. She worked in the Randall Lab for 3 years; currently she is working as an engineer.
Jordan Martin
Jordan is a senior undergraduate student studying horticulture. She currently works with pecan flowering gene expression, but has also completed an internship in droplet-based microfluidics at the Center for Biofilm Engineering at Montana State University, as well as a short internship in bioinformatics at the National Center for Genome Resources. She has a particular passion for trees and using molecular biology for conservation. Jordan is hoping to pursue her Master’s Degree in Belgium after she graduates in 2018.
Lucio Sanchez
After joining the ASSURED program in the summer of 2011, Lucio found that working with plant pathogens as well as plants was something he greatly enjoyed. He contributed to multiple projects where he was able to do research and find new species of phytophthora in New Mexico.
Jeanette Castañon
Jeanette is currently entering her senior year at NMSU and studying Agricultural Biology with a focus in Environmental Biology. She began work in the lab greenhouse in September of 2016, where she gained much experience with greenhouse management of pecans. She has hopes of using her degree and the experience she is currently earned in the lab to make a change for the better in our environment. She has interests in research and outreach and gained Master’s Degree in Agricultural science after leaving NMSU.
Paul Lambert
Paul Lambert is from the mountains east of Albuquerque and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Agricultural Biology in December of 2015. He began pursuing a master’s degree in the spring of 2016, conducting his research on the motility of a Rhodocccus bacterium that is known to cause pistachio bushy-top syndrome. After graduating with his masters he became the Randall lab coordinator before moving on to other pursuits.
Madeleine Woodward
Madeleine is a junior studying Digital Filmmaking at the NMSU Creative Media Institute. She is especially interested in cinematography, writing, and directing. Madeleine began work as a lab assistant in the Fall semester of 2016 until she graduated. She has taken many of the portraits featured on this page.
Dr. Danny Vereecke
Dr. Danny Vereecke was a visiting Research Assistant Professor from Belgium. She obtained her B.S. in Biology, M.S. in Horticulture (Biotechnology), and Ph. D. in Biotechnology at Ghent University (Belgium). Dr. Vereecke is a molecular plant biologist/pathologist. Her research focuses on developmental plant diseases induced by Gram-positive bacteria of the genus Rhodococcus that belong to the versatile actinobacteria. The emergence of Pistachio Bushy Top Syndrome in Southwest USA caused by two Rhodococcus species resulted in her crossing paths with Dr Jennifer Randall. This encounter lead to a fruitful collaboration (and warm friendship) aimed at understanding the molecular basis of Rhodococcus-induced syndromes and revealing differences and similarities between the strategies used by leafy gall and bushy top inducers. As a visiting researcher within the Department of Entomology, Plant Pathology, and Weed Science at New Mexico State University, Dr. Vereecke was continuing the work on Rhodococcus but was also taking her first steps in pecan genetics.
Dr. Hormat Shadgou Rhein
Hormat graduated with her Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from NMSU during the pandemic in 2020. She did her research at Dr. Randall’s lab and the primary focus of her dissertation was identification of flowering genes in pecan using RNA-Seq. Hormat received her MS in Agricultural Biology from New Mexico State University in 2016 and her BS in Agricultural Engineering from University of Tehran, Iran in 2010. Now she is working as a post-doc at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas.
Josiah Brooks
Josiah completed his MS in the Department of Animal and Range Sciences in Fall of 2020 under the mentorship of Dr. Glen Duff and will begin his PhD studies at Texas A&M. In the fall of 2018, he began his master’s program with Dr. Glenn Duff in the Department of Animal and Range Sciences; Dr. Clint Loest is his co-advisor. His project is focused on researching the health and performance of stocker cattle received on winter wheat pasture and the relationship of those health/performance parameters to implemented managerial practices and bovine respiratory disease. Specifically, he is researching if preconditioning calves prior to receiving them on winter wheat pasture will reduce the prevalence of bovine respiratory disease in those calves.
Mannheimia haemolyticaand Pasteurelle multocidaare some of the main bacterial pathogens of bovine respiratory disease, and he is working with Dr. Jennifer Randall to quantify the concentrations of these bacteria in nasal swabs he collected in his research. He is excited and grateful to work in her lab. They are interested in understanding how the concentrations of bacteria found in the nasopharynx of calves may change relative to preconditioning as well as learning more about the specific serotypes of Mannheimia haemolyticathat have been isolated in the nasal swabs.
Faith Diamanti
Faith transferred to New Mexico State University as a junior after receiving her associates degree in Mathematics from Western New Mexico University. She is now working towards her bachelor’s in HRTM through ACES.
Aaron Sanchez
Aaron is from Houston, Texas. He recently graduated from NMSU in December 2020 with a B.S. in Genetics and Biology and a minor in biochemistry. He joined Dr. Randall’s team in spring 2020 as a senior in the HHMI Program. He was accepter to the University of Texas San Antonio to complete his M.D. in 2025.
Liam St. Hilaire
Liam graduated from NMSU with bachelors in Genetics and Biotechnology and minors in Music and Biochemistry. Most of his work within the lab tended to be concerned with bioinformatics and genetic activity. He is now continuing his education at the medical school of University of California in San Francisco.
Jay Dena
Jay is from El Paso, Texas. He is currently working towards his bachelor’s in animal science from New Mexico State University and pursuing a career in veterinarian medicine. He began volunteering in the Randall Lab due to his interests in molecular work and eventually became a research assistant in 2022.
