Presidential Postdoctoral Fellowship

Presidential Postdoc Fellowship Header

The MSU presidential postdoctoral fellows are catalyzing new research projects across a diverse set of labs, building bridges within and across EEB, which is a fundamental goal of the fellowship program. - Elise Zipkin, EEB director.

The MSU EEB Presidential Postdoctoral Fellowship is a two-year position that includes a generous salary and research stipend. Fellows are fully participating members of EEB with cutting-edge research programs and innovative community engagement initiatives, mentored by two or more EEB faculty members.

Information about the position and application process is at this link. FAQs for sponsoring faculty and applicants can be found here.

2026 Fellow

Beatriz Aguirre

Beatriz Aguirre earned her PhD in ecology and evolution at Cornell University, where she studied how community diversity and drought influence plant pathogen prevalence and plant production.

She is continuing her interest in plant viruses and extreme climate events at MSU, where she is generating the first maps of plant viruses across the Midwest and eastern U.S., by screening herbarium specimens for viruses.

The herbarium specimens will also serve as "windows into the past" that document how the plants have responded to extreme weather over the past century.

As part of her fellowship, Aguirre also plans to teach a special topic seminar on supporting learning among first-generation students, and to lead a series of workshops on demystifying GitHub, the software collaboration tool.

EEB mentors: Carolyn Malmstrom in plant biology, Phoebe Zarnetske in integrative biology, and Jim Moran in integrative biology and plant, soil and microbial sciences.

Meet the Fellows

EEB fellows are researchers passionate about building community and contributing to equity and inclusion in science. The fellows catalyze new research projects across a diverse set of labs, building bridges within and across EEB.