September 2026.

Jess traveled to Spain to give an oral presentation on her work at BACNET. She was the recipient of a travel award

September 2026.

Stephen was an invited speaker at the British Society for Medical Mycology's annual conference. 

August 2026.

We're excited to have Macy join us as an MS student for Fall 26. We're also delighted that Tiana chose to stay on as an undergradute researcher after her summer in the lab.

August 2026.

Lauren spent the summer in the lab as part of the Creative Inquiry Program, ending with a poster presentation of her work, 'Screening Amine Oxidase Mutants to Investigate Alternative Nitrogen Utilization in Aspergillus fumigatus', at the CI + UR Summer Showcase. 

June 2026.

Stephen was invited to give a talk at the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology's (FASEB) Trace Elements in Biology and Medicine 2026.

May 2026.

Best of luck to Mallory and Gunar, two of the lab's OG undergrads, as they take their next steps!

Mallory will pursue a PhD in Microbiology at UT Austin and Gunar is joining the MD Program at MUSC.

April 2026.

Congrats to Kaydance who was selected as an EPIC Seifert Scholar for Summer 26. 

April 2026.

Stephen and Shafi traveled to Belfast for the Microbiology Society Annual Conference where they both gave talks on their work. They were honored to receive the 2026 Toni Trinci Award from The Microbiology Society and the British Mycological Society. 

January 2026.

2026 is off to a strong start with three new undergraduate researchers joining the lab! A warm welcome to Kaydance, Katie, and Katelyn. 

November 2025.

The lab enjoyed their semesterly outing to the ASM-SC meeting. Cameron, Lindsay, Shafi, Anna, and Esha all gave posters with Shafi winning Best Graduate Student Poster.  

October 2025.

Stephen, Emily, Mallory, Cameron, Jess, and Esha attended the North American Cystic Fibrosis Conference (NACFC). While there, they had the opportunity to mix with a variety of people from the wider CF community, from patients to clinicians to scientists to industry professionals. The lab was very well represented with all five students presenting posters.

All three undergraduate students had their travel sponsored by the CI Program. Esha's travel was funded by a Clemson University Graduate Student Government (GSG) Graduate Travel Grant. 

October 2025.

This year Stephen was on the organizing committee for CBEP and invited Dr. Antonis Rokas from Vanderbilt University to speak at the conference. Anna, Esha, Jess, and Lindsay presented posters and Shafi gave a talk. Esha and Jess also chaired the final plenary session.

The meeting ended with the presentation of the Bauer Family Travel award, with Shafi winning one of two awards. 

July 2025.

Stephen was invited to present at the 2025 Gordon Research Conference on Microbial Population Biology: Patterns and Processes of Microbial Diversification. 

June 2025.

Jess became the first of the Dolan Lab to pass the PhD Comprehensive Exams and become a doctoral candidate.

A proud moment, massive congrats to Jess! They grow up so fast 😢

June 2025.

Following the Brazil trip, the lab welcomed Dr. Goldman to the Clemson campus. He met with faculty, students, and collaborators across the College of Science, sharing insights from his decades of pioneering work in fungal biology.  

His visit strengthened scientific ties while also highlighting the value of building personal connections that drive international collaboration forward. 

May 2025.

The Dolan lab is proud to be part of the newly launched Eukaryotic Pathogens International Consortium (EPICON), a global initiative dedicated to studying, understanding, and ultimately developing strategies to treat or eliminate parasitic fungi and parasites. 

The consortium is rooted at Clemson University, bringing together international partners to tackle these urgent challenges. Early momentum has been made possible through kickstart travel support from the Clemson College of Science, helping to connect researchers and set the stage for impactful collaborations. 

Stephen maintains a longstanding research collaboration with Dr. Gustavo Goldman. This partnership laid the groundwork for USP to become a founding member of EPICON and continues to connect Clemson researchers with leading international expertise in eukaryotic pathogens.  

As part of this collaborative effort, Stephen, Lindsay, and Jess had the opportunity to spend two amazing weeks in Dr. Goldman's lab, learning new techniques, making new connections, and driving this important work forward.  

April 2025.

Year 2, same top 2. Jess and Gunar battled it out for the top spot again, with Gunar securing the win.

2026 decides the GOAT.

April 2025.

A warm welcome to Esha who has joined the lab for her PhD. An extended welcome to Lindsay who likes us so much that she has decided to do a PhD following her time as a research tech.   

April 2025.

Well done to Gunar who was selected as an EPIC Seifert Scholar for Summer 25. 

April 2025.

Massive congrats to Mallory who won the Clemson University College of Science Bluekey Academic and Leadership Award, 24/25. This award recognizes one student in each of the seven colleges at Clemson who has distinguished themselves in academic scholarship and campus leadership.  

March 2025.

Stephen and Dr. Bruce Rafert have received a Clemson Major Research Instrumentation grant (CU-MRI) for their project “CU-MRI: Next-Generation Hyperspectral Snapshot Imaging for Enhanced Phenotypic Profiling of Eukaryotic Pathogens Impacting Human Health”. 

January 2025.

The lab is excited to welcome two new members, Shafi (PhD student) and Lindsay (research tech). 

December 2024.

Cameron was awarded a COSMIC Spark of Excellence award in recognition of her work over the summer and during her first semester at Clemson. COSMIC is the College of Science Mentoring and Inclusion Collaborative. It is an award-winning peer mentoring program intended to support incoming students with their transition to Clemson by matching them with upperclassmen mentors who come from similar backgrounds and share similar interests.   

November 2024.

Stephen attended ABRCMS, a conference which was founded by ASM to encourage minority, first-generation, veteran, and disabled students to pursue higher education in STEM, on behalf of EPIC and the Department of Genetics and Biochemistry. He judged poster presentations in the microbiology category.

August 2024.

Welcome to the newest member of the lab, Anna (MS student). 

August 2024.

Stephen's paper on bacterial-fungal interactions, "Convergent evolution in toxin detection and resistance provides evidence for conserved bacterial–fungal interactions", has been published in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). This work has been highlighted in the Clemson News.  

Summer 2024.

Cameron Kennedy completed her five-week summer rotation as part of the EUREKA! program. This program gives incoming first-year Honors students the opportunity to gain research experience before beginning their freshman year. Cameron is also a Breakthrough Scholar. The lab are delighted that Cameron will be returning in Fall 24 as an undergraduate researcher. 

Summer 2024.

Logan Gardner and Zechariah (Zech) Karsana joined the lab in June for an eight-week rotation as part of the EPIC MEnTOR (Medical Enrichment Through Opportunities in Research)  program. MeNTOR provides NIH-funded traineeships to selected students who have completed their first year at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine. 

April 2024.

The first annual Dolan Lab mini golf competition took place at The Oasis Ranch on a balmy spring evening. The competition was stiff with Jess taking victory and Gunar a close second. Special mention goes to Shamrat who had never golfed before and chose a child's club for his round (it should be noted that he still beat Stephen). 

April 2024.

The lab traveled to Coastal Carolina University where both Jess and Shamrat presented posters and Stephen gave a talk on bacterial:fungal interactions. This was Jess' first presentation and she won the best poster prize for her work. 

March 2024.

NIAID K22 NOA: 'Defining mechanisms of fungal-bacterial interactions during infection' - NIH NIAID Career Transition Award. This award will support the Dolan Lab's polymicrobial research for the next 2 years. 

March 2024.

Jess was competitively selected and funded to participate in the ‘Fundamentals of Proteomics’ Workshop at the National Resource for Quantitative Proteomics, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS).