Ph.D. students win awards at SACNAS NDiSTEM conference

Tuesday, Dec 16, 2025 • Greg Pederson :

Angelica Torres, left, and Trilotma Sen, right, with J.C. Buckner, UTA assistant professor of biology and a faculty advisor of the UTA chapter of SACNAS.

Two fourth-year students in the quantitative biology Ph.D. program at The University of Texas at Arlington received top honors for their research at a national conference celebrating students’ accomplishments in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

Angelica Torres and Trilotma Sen won first place in their respective divisions at the SACNAS 2025 National Diversity in STEM (NDiSTEM) Conference, held October 30-November 1 in Columbus, Ohio. NDiSTEM is the leading multidisciplinary and multicultural STEM conference in the country.

Torres won the top award in the Graduate Student Poster Presentation - Life Sciences Division. Sen won the top prize in the Graduate Oral Presentation - Cell/Molecular Biology and Other STEM Education & Learning Division.

Torres’ faculty mentor is Woo-Suk Chang, professor of biology. She received a B.S. in Microbiology from UTA and joined Chang’s lab her senior year. She transitioned into fieldwork the summer after graduating in 2022 and joining the Ph.D. program that fall. In spring 2023 she began working on a climate-smart project in Chang’s lab.

Torres tests specific bioinoculants — beneficial microbes applied to soil to enhance plant health — on soybean fields grown in various states and conditions to understand the plant-microbe interaction under real-time conditions. Her work examines how the microbial strains in these bioinoculants influence plant health, shape microbial communities, and affect crop yield specifically under drought stress. Rather than relying on traditional chemical inputs, her research explores sustainable methods that can enhance soil health and crop resilience, focusing on how effective these bioinoculants are across diverse soybean production systems.

“I work across six states to evaluate how these practices influence the soil microbiome, crop performance, greenhouse gas emissions, and soil health, especially under drought stress,” she said.

Her NDiSTEM project, titled “Soil Microbiomes and Sustainability: Insights from Climate-Smart Agriculture in the Mid-South”, examined how different tillage systems and treatments of bioinoculants influenced the soil microbiome and soybean yield across five Mid-South states.

Torres and her collaborators combined multi-state field data with microbial sequencing to understand how soil and microbial communities respond to these practices across the entire soybean growing season, she said.

“I’m so honored to be recognized and to be able to do this kind of research,” Torres said. “Knowing it resonates with a broader community is incredibly rewarding, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to present and contribute to agronomy and soil microbiology.”

Sen’s faculty mentor is Alicia Rogers, assistant professor of biology. Sen received a bachelor’s degree in microbiology and food technology and a master’s degree in microbial biotechnology in India. She chose to come to UTA for her doctoral studies because of its strong reputation as an R1 university with a well-established and collaborative biology program.

“The department’s emphasis on rigorous scientific training and supportive faculty made it an ideal environment for my doctoral studies,” Sen said. “I was especially drawn to the research work happening across labs in microbiology and molecular biology.”

Her research involves studying how small RNAs, which are tiny regulatory molecules in a cell, help protect fertility in C. elegans, a small roundworm commonly used in research because of its simple genome and short lifespan.

“Small RNAs are found across nearly all domains of life, including bacteria, plants, and animals, and are involved in regulating gene expression at many levels,” Sen said. “They play essential roles in determining when and how genes are switched on or off, influencing cellular processes, adaptation, and development. In Dr. Rogers’ lab, we study how adverse environmental conditions affect small RNA-mediated regulation, and what happens when these pathways are disrupted.

“I focus on a ‘feedback’ pathway, in which small RNAs fine tune and balance the activity of sperm genes to maintain healthy sperm function under stress. By uncovering how these non-coding small RNAs safeguard germ cells, our work may offer new insights into the gene regulatory mechanisms involved in hereditary diseases and infertility in humans.”

Her NDiSTEM project, titled “Regulation of gametic gene expression across development via RNAi-to-RNAi cascade in C. elegans,” explores how sperm-producing cells protect themselves from heat stress using a built-in feedback system of small RNAs. Overall, Sen said, the work begins to map how small RNA pathways coordinate to keep germ cells stable and fertile, even when the environment changes. In the long term, it may eventually help to explain stress related reproductive problems, heritable diseases, and fertility issues in humans.

“When my name flashed on the big screen at the SACNAS award ceremony, it felt unreal. More than anything, I felt grateful,” she said. “Recognition for my first oral presentation at a conference has strengthened my motivation to continue developing as a scientist and to contribute rigorously to meaningful research.”

SACNAS (Society for Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics & Native Americans in Science) is the largest multicultural STEM diversity organization in the United States. Its mission is to advance the success of Chicano, Hispanic, and Native American students in obtaining advanced degrees, careers, leadership positions, and equality in STEM fields. SACNAS has 118 student and professional chapters on college campuses across the United States, including UTA.

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