Peter Bottomley College of Science
College of Agricultural Sciences
Shawn Starkenburg Alumnus '07 | College of Science
Taking ownership of the research
As a Ph.D. student and then as a post-doctoral researcher, Shawn Starkenburg worked in Peter Bottomley's lab for almost five years to understand how bacteria process nitrogen in fertilizers and wastewater. He helped to map the genome of a type of bacteria that plays a crucial role in the nitrogen cycle. Starkenburg says Bottomley helped him hone his writing skills and “to take ownership and creatively approach the research.”Bottomley sees mentoring as a learning process with different levels of management and input. “You have to see students individually, giving them opportunities to recognize their own strengths,” he says.
