SUMMER 2026

The start of a new academic year always brings excitement to campus and to G&B. After a quiet but busy summer, the Life Sciences Building is once again abuzz with new and returning students, full classrooms and active labs, as our faculty and staff continue advancing Clemson’s mission of student success, groundbreaking research and innovative scientific impact around the world.

Among those bringing new life to campus this fall are the members of G&B’s Class of 2030. We are especially pleased to welcome our newest first-year students as they begin their Clemson journey and become part of the Genetics and Biochemistry community.

As we welcome the Class of 2030 and begin another year together, I am excited for the growth, discovery and accomplishments ahead. Thank you for being part of the G&B community and for supporting our efforts to prepare the scientists and leaders of tomorrow.

Go Tigers!

Assistant professor Tara Doucet-O’Hare is a member of the Clemson Institute for Human Genetics.

Institute for Human Genetics’s Tara Docucet-O’Hare’s lab works closely with Clemson’s Morgan Poultry Center, using chicken embryos to study devastating pediatric tumors that develop in the brain and central nervous system.

Meredith Morris is a molecular parasitologist within the Eukaryotic Pathogens Innovation Center.

Associate professor Meredith Morris has received a Fulbright Specialist grant to support a six-week residency at the Czech Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Parasitology. 

Shahid Mukhtar’s Creative Inquiry (CI) focuses on soybean anatomy and physiology under stress.

Shahid Mukhtar has been awarded both the Phil and Mary Bradley Faculty Award for Mentoring in Creative Inquiry and the Carr Family Endowed CI for 2026 for his CI “Dissecting Plant Complexity: From Arabidopsis Mutants to Soybean Drought Mechanisms.”

Faculty members Lindsey Beebe, Miriam Konkel, Lela Lackey and Fabio Morgante were promoted beginning the 2026 Fall semester. Read more about these promotions and other awards and honors here.

Rajandeep Sekhon leads the Clemson University team participating in a four-year, $6 million National Science Foundation collaborative grant for the project “Collaborative Research: FEC: Converging AI, Biomechanics, and Genomics to Engineer Lodging Resilient Field Crops.” Read more about this and other grants.

Robert Anholt presented “Dazzle ’Em With Style: The Art of Oral Scientific Presentation (Presentation Skills)” at USC School of Medicine’s 2026 SC INBRE Career Development Workshop. Read more about this and other speaker invites.

Post doctoral fellow Jillian McKeon and Ph.D. student Caroline Palmentiero were co-first authors on “Characterization of two early lead anti-amoebic agents with activity against Naegleria fowleri,” published in the International Journal for Parasitology: Drugs and Drug Resistance. Read more about this and other publications.

Visit the Department of Genetics and Biochemistry website