August 2025: Martins Lab publication “The use of synthetic microbial communities to improve plant health” has been recognized as a Highly Cited Paper by Clarivate for ranking in the top 1% by citation count for its field and publication year!
August 2025: Samuel Martins earned the 2025 Excellence in Teaching Award; the top teaching honor by the American Phytopathological Society (APS).
August 2025: Congratulations to
Roshni Panwala for earning the
Storkan-Hanes-McCaslin Research Foundation at the 2025 APS Plant Health meeting for her research in soil disease!
June 2025: Samuel Martins earned the UF’s 2025 Excellence Award for Assistant Professors in his college and at the University level!
This prestigious university-wide award recognizes the top Assistant Professors at UF for their outstanding research and impact.
May 2025: Congratulations to
Sameerika Mudiyanselage and
Toi Ketehouli winning the
1st and 2nd places in the poster student competition at the 2025 Florida Phytopathological Society Meeting!
April 2025: Samuel Martins receives the
2024 Large Grant Leadership Award
from UF/IFAS Research.
February 2025: Congratulations to Toi Ketehouli for passing the qualification exam!
Toi is now a Ph.D. candidate!
November 2024: Congratulations to Roshni Panwala for passing the qualification exam!
Roshni Panwala is now a Ph.D. candidate!
Fall 2024: Discovering new talents in Martins’ lab members with a night of bowling!
What a blast!
From left to right: Toi, Mason, Samuel, Olivia, Jessica, Sammerika, Roshni Sawlani.
May 2024: A BIG congrats to Roshni Panwala for receiving the 1st place oral presentations award at the UF Plant Pathology Symposium 2024.
August 2023: A big congrats to Josie Pasche for receiving the Luis Sequeira AND the Agricultural Microbiomes Thinkathon Travel Awards to attend the American Phytopathological Society (APS) meeting #PlantHealth2023.
Josie (in the brown shirt) presented her poster on Cultivating Success: How Soil Management Practices Affect Bacterial Assemblages and Reduce M. enterolobii infections.
Martins’ Lab and collaborators are awarded a $3.5 million grant from the USDA OREI program
This project led by Samuel Martins will sample soil at 12 organic tomato farms in California, Connecticut, Florida, and Pennsylvania to investigate the impact of different organic amendments on micro-predator diversity.
Martins' Lab members (Josie, Hiago, Toi, and Samuel) presented a day-long workshop about plant diseases for teachers from Title I schools in Florida
Congratulations Toi Ketehouli for being selected to receive the American Phytopathological Society (APS) Student Travel Award to attend and present at the national Plant Health conference in Memphis, TN #PlantHealth2024.
Celebrating with the team, from left to right: Mason, Victor, Josie, Toi, Samuel, Roshni
Martins’ Lab and collaborators are awarded a $3.5 million grant from the USDA SCRI program
In collaboration with researchers from Penn State University, Lehigh University, and University of Delaware the grant will support work on white button mushroom (Agaricus bisporus) health. Martins lab's research will focus on identifying the bacterial strains causing blotch on white button mushrooms as well as finding ways to sustainably manage the disease.
Tasting some delicious African food in celebration of Toi Ketehouli earning the Grinter Fellowship 2022-2023. Congratulations, Toi!
From left to right: Erica, Kayleigh, Kyle, Josie, Toi, Hiago, Roshni, Carrie, Samuel
Josie (left) and Hiago (right) showing off their Phytopathology mugs and celebrating their new publication:
The Use of Synthetic Microbial Communities (SynComs) to Improve Plant Health.
Martins (bottom right and left) and his collaborators Emerson from UC Davis (left) and Bull from Penn State (right) presented on soil micro-predators at EcoFarm 2023 meeting in California and at the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture 2023 meeting.
Martins' Lab paper on Predators of Soil Bacteria in Plant and Human Health entered the list of Most Read in Phytobiomes Journal.
