Welcome to the website for the Zimmerman Lab at the University of San Francisco . Our research focuses on understanding the ecology and evolution of plant-associated microbes, with a special affection for foliar endophytic fungi.
The lab is led by Dr. Naupaka Zimmerman and is made up of many other wonderful folks , including undergraduate researchers, Master’s students, and sometimes even high school students or other visiting researchers.
We use a range of approaches in our research on plant-associated microbial communities. We often start with field work locally in the Bay Area, at NEON Field Sites across the country, or at USF’s Star Route Farms . After culturing and isolating microbes, we use manipulative greenhouse and growth-chamber studies, culture- and molecular-based lab work, bright field and electron microscopy, and finally a good amount of computational and bioinformatic analyses to probe microbial community composition and functi