Maren Friesen

Maren Friesen is an Associate Professor at Washington State University (WSU), jointly appointed in the Department of Plant Pathology and the Department of Crop and Soil Sciences. Her research focuses on beneficial plant-microbe interactions, particularly nitrogen-fixing systems in legumes and grasses, and integrates experimental and computational approaches to understand mutualistic symbiosis.

Education: PhD in Population Biology from UC Davis (2008) and BSc in Ecology and Mathematics from the University of British Columbia (2003).

Research Interests:

• Evolutionary and ecological dynamics of legume-rhizobia mutualisms
• Grass-associative nitrogen fixation and rhizosphere microbiome interactions
• Mathematical modeling of mutualisms at multi-scale levels
• Soil health, microbial community dynamics, and agricultural sustainability

Current Projects:

• Development of the NFixDB database for diazotroph genomics
• Electrochemical sensors for soil microbiome monitoring
• Investigation of herbarium-derived microbial isolates
• Impact of nitrogen cycling on switchgrass cultivation

Advising & Grants:

• Recruits undergraduates, graduate students, and postdocs to work on interdisciplinary projects
• Funded by grants including NSF CAREER (2020) for coevolutionary community dynamics
• Supports trainees in securing independent fellowships

Labs & Collaborations:

• Labs focus on plant-microbe interactions, bioinformatics, and experimental evolution
• Collaborations span microbiology, ecology, and computational biology