Lab members received the 2026 Daylight Award for Research
The 2026 Daylight Award for Research was presented to Distinguished Professor Steven Wilhelm, the Kenneth and Blaire Mossman Professor in the Department of Microbiology, and alumna Brittany N. Zepernick (PhD ’23), along with R. Michael McKay, director of the Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research and a professor at the University of Windsor.
See the Daylight Academy’s video surrounding this award
Published in The Conversation
Jan 2026. Professor Wilhelm, along with Professor Joshua Weitz (U Maryland), had a piece in The Conversation discussing how viruses can help drive growth and productivity.
Published in Nature Communications
Jan 2026. Naomi Gilbert and Daniel Muratore (Georgia Tech) led a cast of thousands in a study of viral infection of Prochlorococcus in the Sargasso Sea. Read the press release here.
Student collaborative published locally important paper
Nov 2025. Lab alum Brittany Zepernick leads a groups of UTK graduate students in telling the story of the Meads Quarry toxic cyanobacterial bloom in 2024 that turned the waters pink.
Colony formation in Microcystis relates to infection outcome
Nov 2025. Metatranscriptomes from Lake Taihu reveal Microcystis colonies favor lysogen formation after phage infection while single cells tend to form lytic infections.
Professor Wilhelm named to the Royal Society of Canada
Nov 2024. Professor Wilhelm was elected to the Royal Society of Canada for his contributions to microbial ecology, molecular biology and the Laurentian Great Lakes.
Published in The Conversation
Jun 2024. Winter research on the Great Lakes the topic of an article in The Conversation – picked up by various outlets