TPS Fellow Irene Gentzel recently participated in the USDA-NIFA Fellows project directors meeting in Washington, D.C.  In 2017, Irene was awarded a pre-doctoral fellowship in the USDA’s Agriculture and Food Research Initiative Competitive Grants Program.  As a NIFA Fellow, Irene serves as project director on her research project which involves performing the research as well as maintaining the budget and other administrative duties.  To enrich the learning experience from the fellowship, all NIFA Fellows meet once during the project performance period to interact with each other as well as the NIFA staff based in Washington, D.C.  “Meeting so many students and postdocs across several disciplines was very rewarding.  I was really impressed with the diversity of projects supported by the program, and how invested the NIFA staff is in preparing the next generation of scientists for the workforce,” Irene said.  Over 50 pre-doctoral and postdoctoral Fellows were in attendance at the meeting, where Irene presented a short talk on her research project entitled “Maize metabolomics during infection with the bacterial pathogen Pantoea stewartii.”