Fall 2020 is the beginning of my second year as an assistant professor at the University of Maine, but in some aspects, it feels like my first year.

The most prominent visual which evokes this feeling is the new office I just moved into last week. My new office space overlooks my two renovated lab spaces and allows me to witness the first official Ishaq Lab research take shape. My first office was in a building across the street from the two labs, all of which I was inheriting from a previous lab. This reduced our output for several reasons, in particular because undergraduates could not access or be left alone in the lab early on in their training. For several months, when students were in the lab, I was there, too, trying to maintain productivity while on my laptop. And, I needed to be present for several deliveries, meaning I would have to wait around. For the better part of the last year, several students and I have redesigned the space to fit our needs, and it was only over this summer that the microbiology space finally was sorted. Now, I can be close by to answer questions, sign for packages, and sort out problems.

Not only do I have spaces ready for my research, but this year I am also starting with students to perform it. It takes time to recruit students to your lab, and graduate students take particularly long because of application submission or funding start dates. Over the past year, I have been joined by two thesis master’s students, one non-thesis master’s student, 3 graduate students from other labs who do collaborative work with mine, 6 undergraduate researchers, and a handful more partial time undergraduate researchers through the Animal Science Capstone class (more on that further on). The projects range from gut microbes and health, soil microbes in blueberry fields, the use of leaves for home silage, lobster microbes and water temperature, and more! The team is dynamic, curious, and a delight to work with.

To ensure that we stay safe, we manage our lab occupancy with a shared lab calendar (and several of the students are performing partial or fully-online projects). Both spaces are designated for Biosafety Level II work, which means we are already wiping down surfaces with disinfectant before and after use, wearing gloves and a lab coat, and washing our hands before and after work. The air exchange systems stay on to prevent moisture or fume buildup, and they also remove particles from the air, but I have added HEPA filtration units in each lab and my office to remove additional particles (including viruses) from the air. A robotic vacuum in each space cleans dust and settled microbes off the floor each night. In addition, we now limit occupancy, wear masks when multiple people are in the room, and check in/out of the space to facilitate contact tracing.

This semester also feels like my first because I am teaching official courses for the first time. Between the two courses, I am teaching over 50 students! I expect that to increase next fall as my new course becomes more well-known, and as recruitment and retention continue to rise in Animal and Veterinary Studies.

I’m also teaching one on undergraduate research which is a long-standing class that I generated some new materials for. I will teach part of this each fall, and part each spring. Over the academic year they participate in research, then write proposals and reports.

Over the fall, I have a number of research projects to wrap up from the spring, such as data analysis projects which arose from my DNA sequencing data analysis course, one of which on ants I was invited to present at the virtual Entomological Society of America scientific conference in November! I’m also wrapping up a few small projects which originated over the summer, such as the blueberry soil pilot or the lobster microbes data analysis performed by my REU student-turned-direct-hire. I’ll also be starting several new projects on the interaction between gut microbes and the host, led by my graduate students and a number of undergraduates, which will form the core of the research in our lab.

In addition, my Microbes and Social Equity working group is gaining traction! At over 40 participants, the MSE group has been met with interest and enthusiasm from different research and professional fields, and levels of career stage. We are planning to collaborate on a journal special collection, as well as organize a mini meeting sometime in 2021. I look forward to bringing attention to important and timely work on microbes, health, and public policy!