Achievement

Alex Michaud, an IGERT student, seized the opportunity to study golf ball-sized hailstones this past June during a freak weather event. Alex normally studies microbes in Antarctica, but the IGERT program has allowed him to pursue a side project involving both local and international mentors. Alex wanted to learn more about hailstone layers and how they formed around a nucleus of potentially live bacteria in the atmosphere. Using DNA, Alex will identify the bacteria present in the hail to see if they are related to other known ice nucleation active bacteria. If they are, Alex could expand his research and eventually contribute to a widely reported MSU discovery that airborne bacteria were involved in the formation of rain and snow over several continents. Alex's research has been featured in the MSU News Service, the Bozeman Daily Chronicle and KTVM a local NBC affiliate station, and he will present on it at the Annual Society of Microbiology Meeting this May in New Orleans, LA.