BIO NARRATIVE: SHERLYN C. TIPAYNO

Sherlyn Tipayno is an associate professor at the Department of Biology in Benguet State University. She will have her placement at the Department of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture in Purdue University, Indiana under the Agricultural Scholarship Program (FPASP) for advance research. Her research work will be on soil microbial metagenomics, focused on understanding the influence of different agroforestry practices on the composition and functional potential of soil microbial communities, and how these influence productivity and quality of Arabica coffee.

Sherlyn finished her Ph.D. in Agriculture Chemistry at Chungbuk National University in Cheongju City, South Korea where she worked on agricultural soil microbial communities under heavy metal and salt stresses. Her field of interest in research is on soil and environmental microbiology, particularly, microbial community responses to abiotic stresses in the environment as well as beneficial soil and plant microbial populations that have applications in enhancing crop production and remediation of pollutants.  She currently teaches undergraduate and graduate level Microbiology and other Biology courses at BSU.  She hopes her time as a Fulbright scholar at Purdue University would not only allow her to gain new knowledge and skills that she can share to her students and colleagues but an opportunity to engaged in long term collaborative research works that would bring wider, if not a global perspective to addressing problems, especially in agriculture and food production, of benefit to both countries.

Apart from research work, Sherlyn enjoys nature and travelling, whenever means and opportunity are on hand. Otherwise, she finds as much satisfaction in drinking coffee, doing simple handyman chores and actual farm works.