Research

Below are more details on my different research projects

Common Fungal Networks

Using Dark Septate Endophytes (DSEs) as a model for fungi which associate with plants but are not classified as mycorrhizal, I designed a controlled lab experiment to assess whether non-mycorrhizal fungi can form common networks among plants.

Chapter 1: Bock et al., 2025, in Communications Biology

Coauthored on this topic: Rillig et al., 2025

Fungal endophyte coming out of a sorghum plant root in the laboratory.

Cottonwood leaves in the greenhouse during an experiment studying their mycorrhizal symbioses.

Plasticity of Mycorrhizal Symbioses Under Drought and Invasives Stress

In this greenhouse experiment, we grew three cottonwood crosstypes (Populus fremontii, P. angustifolia, and hybrids of the two) neighbored with a conspecific or an invasive plant species, Tamarisk sp., and exposed to drought and well-watered treatments. Using Machine Learning, I analyzed the plasticity of various traits (e.g. specific leaf area, root biomass) under these different conditions.

Publication in prep.

Ubiquity of Endophytes in Plants

It is often claimed that endophytes are found in all land plants. However, there is currently no published paper in the literature which seeks to answer that question. This project is about the big question and the methods we can use to approach such a question: machine learning. I used Natural Language Processing to parse words then used Machine Learning algorithms to classify over 20,000 abstracts from the literature as indicating that fungal endophytes were present or absent from the plants studied.

Click here for the preprint

Fungal endophytes on Potato Dextrose Agar plates

Trophic Mode Shifts

I have been increasingly interested in why, how, and when fungi exhibit trophic mode flexibility (e.g. from saptrophy to pathogenicity)

I recently started a project to assess how common this flexibility is, as described in the literature, using fine-tuned LLMs, like BioBERT

Click here for a preprint of my pilot experiment on this

My vision is to address this question from multiple angles:

1) Literature mining (which taxa are observed to be trophically static vs. flexible)

2) Genomics: Using ML-based techniques combined with laboratory experiments, linking genes to the "signatures" of trophic switching

Future work?

I will be looking for postdoc and faculty opportunities beginning in Spring 2026 (as early as February)!

I am interested in pursuing research with:

- Common Fungal Networks

-Plant/fungal associations (I do have a soft spot for DSE but am interested in all types of fungi)

-Methods including: Machine Learning combined with lab/greenhouse/field experiments

-Outreach/public education components

I would like to apply for the NSF Post-Doctoral Fellowship if it still exists in the Fall :)

Please reach out to me if you are interested in collaborating.

See my CV here :)