Dr. Ralph Ford, chancellor of Penn State Behrend, talks with Emily Dobry, a graduate student who discovered a tree fungus that had not previously been seen in North America.
Dr. Ralph Ford, chancellor of Penn State Behrend, talks with Emily Dobry, a graduate student who discovered a tree fungus that had not previously been seen in North America.
Hi, I'm Dr. Ralph Ford, Chancellor of Penn State Behrend and you are listening to Behrend Talks. My guest today is Emily Dobry, a graduate student who has been pretty active here on campus and contributed to a number of high profile research projects, here at Behrend and at the Lake Erie Grape Research and Extension Center. And we're going to talk a whole lot about those today. In November, Emily, you and Dr. Mike Campbell, distinguished professor of biology, published a paper that is getting some attention in the Journal of Plant Pathology in which you identified a new pathogen that is damaging chestnut trees. And it is a fungus that had previously not been found here in the US, but we'll talk about that and a whole lot more. Welcome to the show. Emily,
Emily Dobry:Thank you very much for having me.
Dr. Ralph Ford:Well, I'm gonna go a little bit further into your background. You know, you earned a bachelor's degree in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology in 2019, a master's in Horticulture in 2021. Right now you're in the second year of your Ph.D. program. You're currently enrolled in the Agricultural and Environmental Plant Sciences program at University Park. But your fieldwork is here in in Erie, Pennsylvania. And you still remain closely connected with Penn State Behrend where you started your Penn State path.
Emily Dobry:I do I do.
Dr. Ralph Ford:Well, let's, let's get into it. Tell us how did you end up at Penn State Behrend to begin with?
Emily Dobry:Well, I had actually been working for many years at a Burger King franchise locally. And I couldn't really move up in the business. And I kind of decided I need to go back to school. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized I didn't want to go to school for business. I wanted to go for sciences. And so my dad's actually a professor here.
Dr. Ralph Ford:And a professor of business as well.
Emily Dobry:Yeah, he's been here for over 20 years now. And so I think that kind of guided my desire to come to Penn State. He's loved being here. And he's spoken so highly of it. I did do a few years or a few semesters when I was much younger.
Dr. Ralph Ford:So you first came here, probably right after school, and then decided it wasn't for you. And you went out into the work world, so to speak? Well, then let's stick with that right now. So, you know, you went out, you were in"the real world", and you found you had to come back to school. And it is not an atypical path. And it's, it's a really good path. So how did that change your you know, your, your viewpoint or your study? And how did you approach school, when you came back after working at Burger King for a number of years?
Emily Dobry:You know, I was actually really, I always think about how grateful I am that I waited. Because I didn't know what I wanted to do at age 18, 19, 20. I really didn't have any clear idea of where life was going to take me or what I wanted to get out of it. And by the time I was 30, I had two kids. And I knew that what I wanted to do was do something that would be lasting for their futures. And that's kind of really what drove this love of working in the sciences. So I think waiting helped me figure out not only what I wanted to do, but to take it more seriously.
Dr. Ralph Ford:So you had two children? And you came back to school? This is a tremendous challenge. How did you manage it, you must have had to develop a system and be really disciplined about what you're doing.
Emily Dobry:Yes, I had a lot of help. Thankfully, their father was very helpful. My family was very helpful. Everybody was extremely supportive of me coming back to school, and I wouldn't have been able to do it without them.
Dr. Ralph Ford:Wow. And did you find that you kind of lost your academic edge? Or did it come back quickly once you got into the classes?
Emily Dobry:I think it came back fairly quickly.
Dr. Ralph Ford:Okay. So mathematics, the writing all of that stuff was there. So let's, you know, we'll jump around. I want to talk about the work you're doing right now you are working with Dr. Mike Campbell, studying, and he's been studying potatoes for a long time. And, you know, they are an important food source. So what are you studying with him? And why do you find this subject so interesting?
Emily Dobry:So we're actually doing dormancy studies. And something that I think most people don't realize about potatoes, and I didn't even really think about it until I got into this. What you buy in the store is a dormant tuber. So it's asleep. Essentially, think about dormant trees. It's sleeping when you buy it. Because if it starts to grow, once you start to get those stems growing out of the eyes, you don't want it anymore. Iit doesn't taste the same, it doesn't have the same quality. And so we're studying dormancy to better understand some of the transitions that will let us know that it's exiting dormancy. So essentially, we're trying to find ways that will allow us to make sure that the tubers are on our shelves for longer We have a more stable food product.
Dr. Ralph Ford:So how do you get there? Is it? How do you engineer or genetically change the potato? Or there are other approaches? So you want to make it last longer, essentially, which is really important, right? None of us like when we go into our pantry, and we find our potatoes have sprouted, and we know they start to get a little soft, and, you know, you try to eat it, but you're probably not so happy that you did.
Emily Dobry:Or when you pick up that bag, and you find out, it's not a potato anymore, it's suddenly liquid, and you don't really want that
Dr. Ralph Ford:Yes liquid. We've all gone through that.
Emily Dobry:So there are a number of ways. We are taking an approach that utilizes RNA sequencing, that allows us to see what genes are being expressed during dormancy, or which ones are not being expressed. And that kind of gives us an idea of what's active within the potato. But, and that will hopefully allow us to identify genes that are important. There are other things that you could do like developing transgenics genetically engineered, that's not our track, currently. But what we're looking at particularly is the use of sprout inhibitors, so things that prevent it from growing, so potentially from exiting dormancy.
Dr. Ralph Ford:So what would do that? Is it a chemical- or biological-based approach to it?
Emily Dobry:Yes. So there are lots of different methods out there that a lot of people use, like clove oil or peppermint oil currently in the United States. The big one is CIPC. But we're trying to move away from that, because it has long lasting environmental effects that really aren't desirable. So what we're working with is called 1,4-Dimethylnaphthalene, or it's more commonly known as DMN. And that's just a natural sprout inhibitor that's actually found within potatoes.
Dr. Ralph Ford:And are there a particular type of potato that you're looking at? Or is it a broad range?
Emily Dobry:We're looking at a broad range now. So we're trying to do everything from your table potatoes to chipping or french fried potatoes.
Dr. Ralph Ford:So I have to ask this question. Do you have a favorite potato that you like? Do you like to even eat potatoes doing all this research?
Emily Dobry:I love potatoes.
Dr. Ralph Ford:All right, well, this is good, because this means that you're studying something that you really like. So but let's talk about your arrangement. So you're here in Erie. you're working in, a lot of people don't know, but Penn State, of course, has this great agricultural outreach. But we have something called the Lake Erie Grape Research Center. That is in northeast PA, I've been there a number of times. And you know, you're doing some great work. They're not only on potatoes, but as the name implies grapes, but during the Ph.D. program at University Park. So how does this all work that you ended up here, and that you're doing your studies here versus say in State College?
Emily Dobry:Well, so I kind of fell into that through the goodwill of Dr. Campbell, my advisor, and through Dr. Ivor Knight, they had wanted to, I think kind of start the ball rolling on potentially supporting graduate research in the sciences up here at Behrend. And I had really wanted to stay here if possible. So they said, Oh, here's our perfect opportunity. And that's really how it worked out. So all my coursework has to be down at University Park right now. We don't have the courses up here for it, which is fine. It was a some commuting, but then I get to do my work here.
Dr. Ralph Ford:Yeah, we have a number, an increasing number. And this is part of our strategy here. And it's, I think, a really good one we have, you know, opportunities to work type of research, you're doing the work we do in here, knowledge Park, it's all this idea of this open laboratory philosophy. And then, you know, as a graduate student, you don't have to be there every day at University Park to go and study. So what do you do? You drive back and forth to spend a few days there and take classes? Is that the way it's working?
Emily Dobry:I did. I'm all done with my coursework now, thankfully. Because it was pretty tiring. But yes, I would drive. I would commute down there for a few days every week and then commute back. So I had some time with my kids.
Dr. Ralph Ford:Okay, and do they have remote classes too? And did that work out for you during the pandemic? Or how did that operate?
Emily Dobry:Yes, weirdly. COVID was beneficial for me in that it allowed me to stay here in Erie and do some coursework here, so I didn't have to commute as much.
Dr. Ralph Ford:Well, it's kind of nice when you get past that point where your coursework is done, and you can focus just on your research. But let's talk a little bit about some of the other areas because you've worked in some pretty high profile projects here. You worked with Dr. Pam Silver as well on salt. Tell us about the work you did on studying salt and roadways and what did you find there?
Emily Dobry:So I think I started with Pam Silver in my freshman or sophomore year, working on road salt runoff. We have a big campus we have a lot of sidewalks here. We have to keep those safe for our students. And she was really interested in looking at how far that salt runoff drifted away from the application sites when you put it on the sidewalks. So we started with a study where we went out and we took samples away from the sidewalk to see how far out that went and went surprisingly far, and a very high level. So that's important for us to know. I mean, if you've heard the saying, salt the Earth, it was a way to destroy soil, right? And so it's a big concern. You can see it around sidewalks all over Erie that the soil is essentially dead, and it can't hold life, because it's too salty.
Dr. Ralph Ford:So here, we have to replant the grass next to the sidewalks.
Emily Dobry:Yep. And so that's really kind of what started it. And then we moved into looking at how that affects streams.
Dr. Ralph Ford:And what did you find?
Emily Dobry:So we found, we worked with Tipulidaes to start with, which are crane flies that kind of look like those giant mosquitoes that fly around here in the fall. Everybody gets a little freaked out about the giant mosquitoes, but they're just little leaf shredders in the water, they actually really help our water. And we found that they were not eating as much of the leaves when they were exposed to high stress, salt, which means that we're not breaking down as much and getting that necessary carbon into the water.
Dr. Ralph Ford:Are there any recommendations that come out of it? I mean, what is it? It's a hard problem, right? So if you're the maintenance team here on campus or anywhere else, the easy answer is throw a little extra salt down because people will be safer. And you avoid lawsuits and people getting hurt. And that's really important. So did you take it as far as coming up with recommendations to either alternatives or salt or better ways to apply? I mean, where did it lead to those sorts of questions as well?
Emily Dobry:Not in my research. Personally, I know that that's something that she did look at in terms of using biochar to try and amend soil to hold on to the salt run off a little bit, so it wouldn't enter the waterways. But as far as I was concerned, not in my research.
Dr. Ralph Ford:The front end of the project where you were, which was really important, because you knew it was a problem. There's no better place than here on campus, by the way. We've got this great Environmental Laboratory where you could do that sort of research so well.
Emily Dobry:And we have the streams around here, we have Glenhill, and then Trout Run and then Four Mile. So it allowed a lot of opportunity to really see how that was actually impacting real waterways.
Dr. Ralph Ford:Did you go out and test out all the waterways on campus?
Emily Dobry:So Dr. Silver actually did that. She did monitoring for quite some time in our water systems. And was it it wasn't great news for them.
Dr. Ralph Ford:So that's, that's, you know, what I've talked to her, of course, about the outcomes of this, we're still trying to come up with solutions to reduce the amount of salt but it's, you know...
Emily Dobry:Tt's a challenge.
Dr. Ralph Ford:It's a challenge. It's everywhere in our, you know, in every Township, and it's heavily used.
Emily Dobry:It's certainly not unique to Behrend. And when you have to ensure the safety of students, there are certain things that you have to take priority.
Dr. Ralph Ford:Yeah, it's a difficult problem. First of all, let's switch to a different project that you worked on. And there's infamous one I say infamous, I think, and it's here on campus, because we love the name just sounds so interesting, bloody red shrimp. So tell us about your work and looking into bloody red shrimp.
Emily Dobry:Oh, that was a fun summer project. So that was headed by Dr. Maxwell, and Dr. Ivor Knight. And they were looking to try and identify ways to test ballast water. So in the bottom of ship, they hold water to help keep them balanced. They wanted to be able to test for this invasive shrimp before it would enter potentially Lake Superior where the shrimp has not yet been found. So they're trying to develop a testing system using environmental DNA or E DNA. And that's kind of where I got involved was testing waters locally and learning how to identify the organism. And yeah, we just we kind of stumbled on it in here in Erie.
Dr. Ralph Ford:You stumbled on it, but I think if if I'm not mistaken you were the first group to identify this species in in US waters, right? Here in our area? Or am I wrong on that?
Emily Dobry:I don't think we were the first in US waters. I know it's been like... In our area, yes. In our area.
Dr. Ralph Ford:But in Lake Erie. Okay, fair enough. And so you had a sense that they were out there. How did you... So walk us through, I think you, you spent some interesting times out there right in the middle of the night trying to find them. I mean, are they nighttime creatures? Why would you do that versus just going out? How do you collect the samples?
Emily Dobry:They are nighttime creatures and, they tend to hang out deeper in the water during the daytime and then they'll come up towards the surface at night. And so you had to go out with this red lamp on your for a little water and hope that you can see their flashing eyes and then you would sample for it.
Dr. Ralph Ford:Oh, so you you and your classmates were down there, research mates so to speak, in wading boots or something like this. How do often did you have to go into the water?
Emily Dobry:We actually went... I don't know what it's called. It's that wall that runs out. Is it a jetty that runs out between the lake and the Bay, the channel there? So we were out on the wall, and we would dip buckets and pull them up and hope that we would find them in there. And we found lots.
Dr. Ralph Ford:And did you know then? Or was it not until you got back to the lab that you were sure that you had them there?
Emily Dobry:We were fairly confident because their eyes actually flash red when you shine that light on them. So it kind of is a giveaway. But they were officially identified by Dr. Gruwell once we got back to the lab.
Dr. Ralph Ford:And he did that via DNA testing? Is that how he did it?
Emily Dobry:We did it with DNA testing. But we also he did it visually assessing morphological characteristics.
Dr. Ralph Ford:So why do we care about them? They're invasive. I don't say that in a callous way. But I think, you know, listeners need need to understand. Are they a threat to our ecosystem here? What is the issue with having them in our waterways?
Emily Dobry:They are competitors for our natural native shrimp. And so they're out competing for food resources. And it's been some time, so I may be incorrect, but I don't think that they provide the same level of food resource, and they're not quite as desirable to our fish species that we have here, as the native shrimp are. And so if you have them out competing, and we have less and less of our native species, it can cause a problem.
Dr. Ralph Ford:And then the other things eat those shrimp. And you know, so it becomes probably a compounding problem. So where did they come from? So you said they came from ballast water? But I mean, like, what part of the world did they come from? Where did where did they trace back to?
Emily Dobry:I believe that came from the Baltic Sea.
Dr. Ralph Ford:Wow, we have quite a few invasives from the Baltic.
Emily Dobry:Unfortunately, that came over on ballast water.
Dr. Ralph Ford:So how do you how do you mitigate that problem?
Emily Dobry:You just have to test I know that there are they're looking at doing using methods in the ballasts that would kill life in there so that you essentially have water that doesn't have anything living in it anymore. So you're not dumping potential living organisms. But I'm not entirely sure what all that involves.
Dr. Ralph Ford:And it's probably managing the ballast
Emily Dobry:So it's an Ag Research Center, and it's mostly water so that it doesn't get dumped into the lake in the focused on grapes. So we have contracts with Welch's. So we first place. Yes. You know, as we know, we've got Asian carp and the infamous Gobi, and I'm sure many other things that we have choose grapes. But we also have a lot of wine varieties out could go on and on about that have been introduced that way, and it's a real issue. Let's switch back to the work that you're doing at the Lake Erie, great Research Center. First, tell us a bit more about that center out there. And what is it, and what is the type of work that happens there? there. And it's really just focused on looking at pests, best growing practices for vineyards for grapes. But we also have a number of other things that we grow out there. We have Haskaps. I don't know if you've ever heard of a Haskap. I've not heard of that. I'm not entirely sure what it is. It's a European fruit. It's from Northern Europe. And it looks like a very long blueberry, but it kind of tastes like a Blackberry. And we have some of those. We have blueberries, we have chestnuts out there. So there's a lot of agricultural research. And we work in collaboration with Cornell and University Park.
Dr. Ralph Ford:So how did the local farmers play into this? So do they come to you with problems and say, we're seeing these issues? Can you help us figure it out?
Emily Dobry:They do. They come to the center, they they will bring in concerns about pests, they will come in for questions about which fertilizers to apply which fungicides, etc. So they reach out to the Ag Center a lot. They hold something called a coffee talk pretty frequently where they meet with a local grower so they can answer questions and kind of give guidance.
Dr. Ralph Ford:So you said something else or that caught my attention to and that you look at different varieties of grapes, are you trying to find those that can be better cultivated for the long term as well and introduce different varieties to the region. We know it's a huge part of our economy. But it's not really a great area generally for growing, say, red wine grapes. But I think they're really trying to do that more and more.
Emily Dobry:Here they are. So I think a lot of what they're trying to focus on here is looking at what's going to be successful in our area, and how they might respond to local pressures that we have environmental pressures pest that we have here that maybe aren't present elsewhere, fungi that we deal with water, resources, etc. But yeah, I think they're really looking at what's going to be successful in our areas that they can then inform growers.
Dr. Ralph Ford:Have you found the spotted lantern fly here in our region?
Emily Dobry:It has not been found in our region that I'm aware of. Flor Acevedo, Dr. Acevedo would know more about that than I do. But as far as I'm aware, it's been found over in Ohio and New York but not here, so far.
Dr. Ralph Ford:And for those who are listening, it's a highly invasive species. I think I in the east side of the state, it is wreaking a tremendous amount of havoc. So you see the signs on the road to check your car when you're leaving certain areas because the light can cause they latch on to your car and be moved around.
Emily Dobry:I've never seen one in person.
Dr. Ralph Ford:I have not seen one. I've only seen pictures.
Emily Dobry:They're beautiful. I went to, I think it was Elizabethtown last year. And they're everywhere. They coat all the plants there. It's just overrun with these. They really take over and it is quite a problem. But they are beautiful. They are beautiful. They're very pretty insects.
Dr. Ralph Ford:Well, I remember as a kid seeing gypsy moth infestations and it was stunning. And they're not pretty by the way. They're not so nice looking. And it wasn't pleasant either. I remember being out in the woods and Massachusetts on vacation and seeing that and it just was not at all that nice to see. So when I hear about the spotted lantern fly, I think about that as well. And it's not a nice thing. So well, hopefully we can keep them out of our region and knock on wood. So far, we've been able to. Let's talk about an area where you have spent, I believe a considerable amount of time, and that is looking at chestnut trees. Yes. So tell us a bit about just even the importance of chestnut trees. You know, they've had a tremendous decline in the United States. And I'm not sure everyone's aware of that. And we'll talk about some of your research but gives set the table tell us about the importance of chestnut trees.
Emily Dobry:Sure. So chestnuts, they're closely related to Oak and Beech. They were here for upwards of 50 million years in our area in the United States. And they were incredibly important to our forest systems, because they would produce large net crops every single year. And they produce really tasty nuts. And they were very sweet. They were extremely palatable, they produced far more nuts than their own relatives. So whereas only produces every four or five years, a big nut crop chestnut did every year, so it really supported a lot of life in our forest systems, particularly along the Appalachian mountain range. So they really dominated for millions of years up until about 100 years ago when we saw the introduction of another invasive pathogen.
Dr. Ralph Ford:Okay, so it came from settlers, and when you say pathogen, it's a fungus or something?
Emily Dobry:Yes. So it came from Japan and China. There were nurseries over there. It was a time in our country's history where we weren't really interested in having the exotic species in our gardens. And so we were bringing in a lot from all over the world. And unfortunately, we introduced chestnuts that had this disease, and they could handle it. But the American Chestnut, which had been largely isolated throughout its existence, couldn't. It didn't have any kind of natural resistance. And it really just absolutely devastated the American chestnut.
Dr. Ralph Ford:People were looking for them right to identify them. They have a very distinctive look.
Emily Dobry:Not that I don't think they do. But the challenge right now is that we've had nearly, gosh, almost 100 years of hybridizing, okay with Asian species. And so a lot of times, you may think that you have an American, but chances are pretty good, you have a hybrid version.
Dr. Ralph Ford:Sort of in that hybrid, make it frankly, so that they could survive here is that it?
Emily Dobry:It did help. Yes, and it increase the resistance, the disease resistance, because the Asian species were more resistant.
Dr. Ralph Ford:But is it that the Asian species are not as good as the American in terms of the you know, the fruit and everything that you talked about?
Emily Dobry:in our forest systems, the organisms that used to rely on this tiny little nut can't use that larger one. And the trees are typically shorter for the Asian species. So we don't have that canopy growth, which is necessary for the American chestnuts here. It's pretty competitive.
Dr. Ralph Ford:So we can you find them, you know, if you go into forests in our region, here, they are out there some of the American chestnut trees.
Emily Dobry:Yeah, so they're considered functionally extinct, which means that they're still in existence. But they are having a hard time reproducing, essentially. They're out there, but they can't reproduce and keep that species going. And that's what makes them functionally extinct, is we're not really seeing new chestnuts being established. And that's because they have to reach the canopy. That's why that height is so important. So you can find them, but they are few and far between.
Dr. Ralph Ford:Well, so but your research is to try to restore them and bring them back. Is that a fair assessment? Or what are you looking at?
Emily Dobry:My research was actually focused on another pathogen that has become a new concern for chestnuts and I really wanted to look at what that could potentially mean to the restoration efforts. Not that I was necessarily involved in the restoration itself, but looking at how this pathogen could affect the work that they're doing.
Dr. Ralph Ford:Okay. So tell us, I think you've had some pretty significant results. Don't be modest. Yes. Tell us what you found.
Emily Dobry:So we were looking at a pathogen called Gnomoniopsis Castanea, which is quite a mouthful. It's also commonly known as brown rot.
Dr. Ralph Ford:Say it again.
Emily Dobry:Chestnut brown rot?
Dr. Ralph Ford:What was the full name?
Emily Dobry:Gnomoniopsis Castanea, or Gnomoniopsis Smithogilvyi. Yeah, those are fun to say.
Dr. Ralph Ford:I'm not even going to try.
Emily Dobry:But it's been a big problem over in Europe and Australia, where it's caused a lot of crop loss because they still have competitive chestnut industries there where they can grow and sell chestnut nuts. But this is robbing the product. And we recently identified it here in the US. It was actually Dr. Sakalidis, up in Michigan who identified it first. But we identified it around the same time here in Erie. And so we were really interested in what that's going to mean for the hybridization efforts and for the transgenics, because those are your nuts for your next generation for chestnuts. So if this is a network pathogen here in the US, what's that going to mean?
Dr. Ralph Ford:So then your goal is to help the trees adapters to keep the pathogen out. And what's the thought process as to how you mitigate it?
Emily Dobry:So our goal here wasn't to look at mitigation at all. It was really because nobody had studied it in the US yet. And nobody knew what it was going to do to the American Chestnut, or the our hybrids or Chinese species that we widely grow here. We wanted to look at how it was going to affect the species that are common in the United States, and understand what it would mean to them.
Dr. Ralph Ford:And is this the subject of your Ph.D. thesis?
Emily Dobry:No, that was part of my master's thesis.
Dr. Ralph Ford:Okay. Yes. So now tell us what you're doing in your Ph.D. work?
Emily Dobry:That's working with the potatoes.
Dr. Ralph Ford:So how far along are you in your studies? Are you writing your your thesis as we speak?
Emily Dobry:For my Ph.D? No.
Dr. Ralph Ford:Well, I'm not trying to pressure you, I know there always a lot of pressure to do so. But you have to be getting close to that point here. If you've finished all your coursework.
Emily Dobry:Well, we luckily, my coursework was kind of the same thing that it was for my masters. So I knocked that out of the way pretty easily. But for my Ph.D., we just finished or we will be finishing sequencing our second year of data. And that's really kind of when we're going to start writing this up and getting the results out there.
Dr. Ralph Ford:You need some publications? So you know, what is your plan after you graduate? You know, as you go into higher education, research, teaching industry, what's your plan?
Emily Dobry:I, you know, I'm not really sure. I really enjoy the work at the Ag Extension. I love working with people and being able to do that outreach. I've really been enjoying doing, what teaching I have done or the TA in some cases, but I really enjoy that too. So my, my choices are endless.
Dr. Ralph Ford:I think you've got some time to think about it. And do you got a long life ahead of you. So you can do many different things. You know, you don't have to have it all figured out. Well, we're coming to the close of our discussion here today. Is there anything else you'd like to add about your experiences here at Behrend and at Penn State?
Emily Dobry:I think that what I would like to add is that Behrend has really been my home. There's a reason I came here for my undergraduate. There's a reason I wanted to stay here for my graduate research. I love this campus. It's beautiful. The people here are so incredibly supportive. And I think it's, it's been my home, I feel incredibly honored to be a part of ongoing research and promoting this university.
Dr. Ralph Ford:Well, we're honored to have you here and you've really been involved in some high impact projects, and you've made a contribution to them. And I'll just add that I think, you know, you exemplify what we see here in the Behrend culture, which is a really engaged community of focus on our students, but I think really unique in not only combining that great teaching, but research as well. And you're probably one of the greatest examples we have of somebody who has lived that so thank you so much. My guest today has been Emily Dobry, a graduate student here at Penn State University, working here at Penn State Behrend. My name is Dr. Ralph Ford. You have been listening to Behrend Talks.