News – Gage Lab

January 30, 2026

¡Fiesta de Tortillas!

(not pictured, Joe’s smiley-face tortilla)

Sarah Dinger, the PSI Program Manager for Education and Extension Outreach, had excess masa from Masienda she had used in one of her modules. Knowing our love for all things corn, Sarah kindly gifted us the extra, so the Gage Lab teamed up with Dr. Jim Holland‘s group to throw a tortilla party! We had a great time making fun designs in our tortillas and chatting the evening away, maize-related or not.

January 23, 2026

Corn Growers Association of North Carolina Funds Gage Lab Research

The CGANC funded two proposals submitted by the Gage lab. The first is in partnership with Dr. Peter Balint-Kurti and will continue Cole’s work using UAV imagery and machine learning to classify resistance to Southern corn leaf blight. The second is in collaboration with Dr. Jim Holland and will be used to supplement funding for genotyping the US heirloom maize populations. See more about the CGANC here.

December 16, 2025

Gage Lab Awarded GGA Seed Grant to Fund RiboPi

Each year, the NCSU Genetics and Genomics Association awards seed grants to interdisciplinary research projects here at NCSU. This eyar we are grateful to announce that we were awarded one of these grants as Co-Pi with Dr. Jose Alonso and Dr. Anna Stepanova. This grant will be used to fund Bri’s work (Advancing Tools for Translation-Level Gene Expression Analysis). Check out the project’s abstract here.

December 1, 2025

Jordan Selected as National Corn Growers Association Research Ambassador

Jordan was selected as one of the 2026 National Corn Growers Association Research Ambassadors, making her the second ambassador coming from the Gage lab, with Ty in 2023 being our first. “The purpose of the NCGA Research Ambassador Program is to build a network of future leaders in the agriculture sector.” NCGA helps fund the Genome to Fields Initiative and is interested in the research Jordan is doing with the US Heirloom project. They are excited to see results and will have Jordan share her research with a large network of agricultural leaders in the U.S. It will be a great experience to see how agricultural policy is made and learn the needs of growers throughout the nation. Read more about the NCGA Research Ambassadors program here.

November 24th, 2025

Gage Lab Submits their First Paper for Preprint 🎉

The Gage lab recently released a preprint exploring how microbes living around corn roots assist plants cope with high temperatures. Using cutting-edge metatranscriptomics technology, we uncovered coordinated shifts in both plant genes and microbial pathways that support heat tolerance. Check out the preprint on bioRxiv here.

November 24th, 2025

Gage Lab Troll Stroll at Dix Park

This week, in lieu of lab meeting, the Gage Lab took a walk to Dorthea Dix Park to visit Thomas Dambo’s new art installation titled “The Grandmother Tree”. Dambo is an internationally acclaimed Danish artist that uses locally sourced, recycled wood to create whimsical large-scale sculptures in promote of environmentalism. “The Grandmother Tree” tells the story of a mother, father, and five children that have cast a spell in protection of the grandmother tree, the oldest tree in the forest, so than no humans can find and harm her. Along with the five trolls in Dix Park there is one installed in Charlotte, and the final in High Point, NC. This was a great lab bonding experience, and we encourage everyone to check out the trolls at Dix Park if they are able!

November 12th, 2025

Ty’s Zeavolution Talk

Ty gave a talk at Zeavolution. A nation-wide, online maize research community.

November 10^th, 2025

Jaswinder Receives 2^nd Place in the Turfgrass Long Talk at CANVAS

This year graduate students Jaswinder Kaur and Cole Hammett attended CANVAS, formerly the Tri-Societies ASA, CSSA, and SSSA, in Salt Lake City, Utah. During the meeting Jaswinder presented her talk titled, “Genome-Wide Characterization of Genetic Diversity and Population Structure in St. Augustinegrass” at the Turfgrass Long Talk session. Jaswinder did a fantastic job and was awarded 2nd place.

October 17th, 2025

Ty’s INTRINSyC Talk

Ty gave a talk at INTRINSyC a lively community in Plant Biology at NCSU that gives live, in-depth feedback on your research.

September 6th, 2025

Katelyn got married!

In the Gage, not only do we support and celebrate events in your scientific life, but events in your personal life as well. In early September, Katelyn married her long-term partner, James, at his family’s flea market in Hickory, NC. It was a hot and humid day full of more love and support than the couple ever could have imagined from their community.

August 18^th, 2025

Jordan Received 2^nd Place at the 2025 GGA Flash Talks

Each year the NCSU Genetics and Genomics Academy has a flash talk competition to showcase the research being done by our valued graduate students. This year Jordan received second place with her talk titled “Magic Mucilage of Maize”.

July 30^th, 2025

Cole Received PSI Graduate Award

Cole was named one of the eight graduate students receiving the Trolinder and Peele funding support from the NCSU Plant Science Initiative. The eight recipients receive funding to supplement covering student fees, the cost of tuition, research, conference fees, professional memberships and conference travel. Along with the funding recipients are also connected with mentors, as well as committing to be a mentor for high school students participating in the North Carolina Youth Institute.

July 15^th, 2025

Nate Received USDA Post-Doc Fellowship

Post-Doctoral Scholar, Dr. Nate Korth, applied to the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) Education and Workforce Development grant for his Genotype by Environment by Rhizosphere Microbiome Interactions (GERMs) research platform. Nate wrote an excellent grant proposal and was fully funded! This is a massive honor and allows, Nate to expand his current research and be more financially independent from the lab. Congratulations, Nate!

June 10^th, 2025

Ty Passed his Prelims!

Ty has passed his preliminary exams and is now officially a PhD candidate! Congratulations, Ty!

May 30^th, 2025

Jaswinder had her First Committee Meeting

Jaswinder had her first committee meeting where she outlined her plan of research and classes to her committee members. Jaswinder’s committee consists of Dr. Susana Milla-Lewis, Dr. Joe Gage, Dr. Amanda Hulse-Kemp, and Dr. Marcello Mollinari.

December 12, 2024

Dr. Joe Gage named as one of the Goodnight Early Career Innovators

The Goodnight Early Career Innovators Award is given to ~25 early-career tenure-track assistant professors to help in retention of faculty that show early productivity in STEM or STEM education research and innovation. As reward for being chosen the Gage lab will receive $22,000 each year for the next three years to help support our lab’s scholarship and research. Read more about the Goodnight Early Career Innovators Award, the other 20024-2025 winner or other winners here and here.

February 28 – March 3, 2024

Gage Lab Attends Maize Genetics Conference in Raleigh, NC

The Gage Lab attended the Maize Genetics Meeting hosted this year on our home turf in Raleigh, NC. The conference started off with lab member either attending the Corn Breeding Research Meeting or the Genetics of Maize-Microbe Interactions workshop before coming together as the large group for the Maize Genetics Meeting. The conference was filled with insightful talks on topics such as: Fostering Diversity in the Maize Community, The Genes that Make Maize, The Nitrogen Conundrum, and Maize Evolution. Lab members Ty, Stef, Jordan, and Nate presented posters at the poster session and all had plenty of time for networking with academia and industry researchers. Recordings from the meeting will be posted here if you would like to view any of the talks.

January 12, 2024

Lab member, Ty Thomas, attends National Corn Growers Association Growers Committee Meeting in St. Louis, MO

January 8, 2024

Gage Lab gains three new members!

The Gage lab has gained three new members, two PhD students and one Post-doc! Laide Rasaki is a Genetics and Genomics scholar who rotated though our lab fall 2023 and then decided to choose our lab as his co-advisor. Laide is also advised by Dr. Amanda Hulse-Kemp and will be developing and integrating of genetic tools and computational methods into plant breeding systems for accelerated crop improvement. Jaswinder Kaur joined the lab as a PhD student and is co-advised by Dr. Susana Milla-Lewis. Jawinder will study turfgrass breeding and genetics. Last but not least, Nate Korth joined the lab as a postdoctoral scholar to study Genotype x Environment x Rhizobial Microbiome interactions in maize. We are very excited for our lab to grow with such great scientists! Learn more about our new members on our Current Lab Members page.

October 19, 2023

Lab members attend and give flash talks at the Plant Breeding Consortium Science-Social

The Gage Lab attended the Plant Breeding Consortium Science-Social at the J.C Raulston Arboretum where Ty and Stef gave flash talks on “Utilizing RNA Sequencing to further Understand Genotype by Environment Interactions” and “Phenotypic Response and Investigation of Tissue-Specific Translation Regulation by uORFs in Maize” respectively. At the science-social there were also invited speakers from Syngenta, Camcore, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to tell us more about their organizations and speak on how breeding advancement benefit the work they are doing. Check out more about the NCSU Plant Breeding Consortium here!

October 18, 2023

Dr. Joe Gage gives talk at Fall 2023 Agricultural Microbiomes Symposium

Our very own Dr. Joe Gage gave a talk at the Fall 2023 Agricultural Microbiome Symposium on “Breeding for Beneficial Microbiomes”. During his talk Dr. Gage showed that the heritability of plants microbiomes are low, but nonzero meaning that advancements through selection may be possible. Dr. Gage also brought up the questions whether microbiomes can be key players in useful traits and if they were to be a target should we breed the plants, microbes, or both? Learn more about the Fall 2023 Agricultural Microbiome Symposium here.

August 25, 2023

Lab members attend annual GGA retreat

Lab members attended the second annual Genetic and Genomics Academy retreat where they listened to talks from researchers at the university, participated in a breakout session to shape the goals of the GGA for the coming year, and presented research during the poster session. Learn more about the annual GGA retreat here.

August 21, 2023

Jordan Cummings joined the lab as a PhD student

Jordan joined the lab Fall semester 2023 to start her PhD co advised by Dr. Joe Gage and Dr. Jim Holland. Her project will work to characterize the maize heirloom varieties of the United States. Jordan was selected to be a Genetics and Genomics Scholar, read more about the Genetics and Genomics Academy here. Read more about Jordan’s background in our Current Lab Members page.

August 1, 2023

Ty selected as National Corn Growers Association Research Ambassador

“The purpose of the NCGA Research Ambassador Program is to build a network of future leaders in the agriculture sector.” NCGA helps fund the Genome to Fields Initiative and are interested in the research Ty is doing with G2F. They are excited to see results and will have Ty share his research with a large network of agricultural leaders in the U.S. It will be a great experience to see how agricultural policy is made and learn the needs of growers throughout the nation. Read more about the NCGA Research Ambassadors program here.