As the academic year draws to a close (for the students), a flurry of awards ceremonies recognize their dedication and ingenuity. This year, as every year, the Ishaq Lab is grateful for all we have to celebrate! Only about a third of the lab was able to make it to our end of the semester good-bye party, but I look forward to their celebrating their continued successess in the lab and beyond.

Doctors

Johanna Holman, PhD., was recognized as an Outstanding Graduating Student for 2026 by the UMaine Graduate Student Government, and received her doctorate in Microbiology! This was actually her FOURTH award during her graduate studies. Johanna wasn’t able to have her doctoral hood bestowed at the UMaine graduate student graduation, as she just flew to Birmingham, England to start a postdoc position in the lab of Dr. Lindsay Hall, who focuses on early life microbial exposure and health.

• 2026 UMaine Outstanding Graduate Student
• 2024 UMaine Outstanding Graduate Student
• 2022 Norris Charles Clements Graduate Student Award
• 2020-2021 University of Maine Graduate Student Employee of the Year
• Holman, Johanna. “The Metabolism And Community Contributions Of A Gut-Derived, Glucoraphanin-Degrading Bacteria: A Multi-Omics Approach.” (2026). University of Maine. Doctor of Philosophy in Microbiology. (Forthcoming).
• Holman, Johanna M., “Prevention of Inflammatory Bowel Disease by Broccoli-sourced and Microbially-produced Bioactives” (2022). University of Maine. Master’s of Science Thesis. 3654.

Future Doctors

Aaron Williams, B.S. Zoology, was awarded Honors for his thesis! Aaron started in the lab for a bit his first year, and came back in his last two years to complete his Honors research thesis on bacterial metabolism of glucoraphanin as a means of surviving acidic conditions, as well as effect on the byproducts produced. Here we are posing with the spectrophotometer that played a critical role in generating very large spreadsheets of data. Aaron is heading to Tufts Veterinary College in the fall!

Mia Poirier, B.S. Biology (Pre-Med Concentration) and Madison Ringuette, B.S. Animal and Veterinary Science (Pre-Vet Concentration), and Miri Talalay, B.S. Zoology and Veterinary Studies, are also graduating. Mia and Madison are both taking a year to gain medical and research experience before diving back into college for medical and veterinary programs, respectively. Over the last semester, Mia and Madison helped with two mouse trials investigating the effect of broccoli sprout diets on the gut microbiome, which can use the diet to make anti-inflammatories to reduce symptoms. The first was a pilot project testing our two of our bacterial cultures as probiotics, which is part of Alexis Kirkendall’s work, and the second was a project investigating the efficacy of broccoli sprout diets for resolving gut and neuroinflammation in young adult mice, which is part of Ashley Reynold’s work. Mis was awarded funding for her work in the lab: 2025/2026 Undergraduate Research Award from the UMaine Center for Undergraduate Research and the UMaine Institute of Medicine. Miri had been working us since her first year at UMaine! Miri worked on a variety of projects, helping provide key technical support on some of our years-long culturing projects. This included the screening of hundreds of bacterial cultures for their ability to metabolize glucoraphanin, and whether they would be able to use glucoraphanin and its byproducts to survive in acidic conditions (which Aaron also focused on).

All four Future Doctors will be featured as authors and contributors on our manuscript in development, led by Johanna, which will present the culturing work we’ve done over the last four years! We hope to get that submitted for peer review this summer.