Current Lab Members
Alayna Jacobs
Ph.D
Alayna joined the lab in January 2019 after a 12-year career with the USDA-Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). Her career in NRCS was focused on helping a variety of farmers and landowners implement innovative conservation practices in Arizona, Arkansas, and Mississippi. Until December 2018, she managed a 250-acre Plant Materials Center in Mississippi with the goal of using cover crops to protect water quality on cropland in the lower Mississippi River Basin. She completed a B.S. degree in Rangeland Ecology and Management at the University of Arizona and a M.S. degree in Crop, Soil and Environmental Science: Soil Physics at the University of Arkansas. She enjoys gardening with her five-year-old daughter and husband, dove hunting, reading science fiction books, running, and cooking with Hatch green chile (she is a southern New Mexico native). Alayna is excited to join the team and looks forward to learning more about the effects of alternative animal forage metabolites on soil trace gas production and microbial relationships in pastures as well as tall fescue endophyte influences on plant and soil microbial dynamics.
Rebecca McGrail
Postdoctoral Scholar
Rebecca joined the lab in September 2021 after earning her PhD in Integrated Plant and Soil Sciences at UK. She earned a BS degree in Environmental Chemistry at Saint Vincent College in 2014 and an MS degree in Agronomy from West Virgina University in 2017. In her free time, Rebecca enjoys reading mystery novels, baking, crafting, and gardening. Rebecca is excited to join the lab and scale up research from the lab and greenhouse into the field. She is looking forward to further studying root phenotypes and their impact of agroecosystem function.
Kent Pham
Graduate Student
Kent joined the lab in August 2020 after graduating with a BS degree in Biology from University of the Sciences in Philadelphia. His current research focuses on incorporating hemp into Kentucky crop rotations and the associated microbial and greenhouse gas impacts. When Kent is not in the lab, he enjoys playing volleyball, rock climbing, and playing with his two cats. Kent is enthusiastic about diving deeper into analyzing soil chemical properties and nutrient cycling.