Melanie Cabrera

School of Forest, Fisheries, and Geomatics Sciences, University of Florida

Contact

melanie.cabrera@ufl.edu
LinkedIn

Research Summary

I am an undergraduate student majoring in Plant Science and Specializing in Breeding and Genetics, with a certificate in Artificial Intelligence. The current focus of my research is to investigate the relationship between a Chinese boring beetle and its associated fungi Geosmithia luteobrunnea which is killing American Sweetgum trees in China. More specifically, I am interested in whether it is the fungi or the beetle that is killing the tree, with the hopes of developing a managing strategy in case it reaches the United States.

Short Bio & Education

• 2019-2023 University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida. Bachelors in Plant Science: Breeding and Genetics, minor in Artificial Intelligence

• Research assistant | University of Florida’s institute on aging | January 2020-January 2022
  • Finalize all of Dr. Anton's research documents by adding references for his manuscripts with EndNote
  • Pioneered gathering information for research related to mobility in older adults and how to improve their quality of life through interviews with the elderly and database research.

• Intern | NASA develop National program |SSAI LLC| September 2021-November 2021
  • Collaborated with 3 other participants, Peru’s Ministry of Health, Peru’s Ministry of Environment, and four additional organizations to develop a zoonotic disease outbreak risk matrix in R which correlates zoonotic disease incidence with climatic and topographic variables to identify vulnerable areas and generate risk maps in ArcGIS
  • Implement science communication strategies in technical papers, presentations, and an educational video to ensure our processes and results can be easily understood by partners and the public
  • A link to the technical report written by my teammates and I can be found here

• Biomolecular Lab Research Assistant | University of Florida | May 2021-September 2021
  • Identified the major differences between the susceptible and resistant basil to downy mildew, to highlight the molecular mechanism of resistance in the hybrid.
  • Focus of my research consisted in molecular cloning of 5 genes that were identified as candidate resistance genes using de novo transcriptomic data such that they may be further investigated.