SOBR Exhibit— Stories of Hope, Healing, and Recovery
8/24/2026 - 9/18/2026
Frontiers In Science: Glow Big or Go Home
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NWTC Green Bay
Green Bay Campus - SC130 Auditorium
Frontiers In Science presents:
Glow Big or Go Home: Navigating Wilting Spinach, Weather, and Failed Plans in Summer Research
with Dr. Angelo Kolokithas, Dr. Katie Mahoney and Dr. Marc Ditty from NWTC's College of STEM
Free event for NWTC students, staff, and faculty. With complementary snacks to keep you glowing!
Wednesday, October 28, 2026
11:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
Auditorium (Room SC130), NWTC Green Bay Campus
When Science Takes a Detour: A Summer of Spinach, Soil, and Shared Expertise
What do you do when your research doesn't go as planned? Our team set out to investigate how alginate film, biochar, and a nitrogen-fixing bacterium ( Azotobacter vinelandii ) impacted the germination and growth of spinach across indoor and outdoor trials.
Along the way, we faced it all: culturing difficulties with glowing green fluorescent protein (GFP) bacteria, wilting plants, and unpredictable outdoor weather. By blending agriculture, chemistry, and microbiology, our interdisciplinary team learned how to try new things outside our comfort zones.
Join us for a story about practical research, navigating experimental failure, and using collaboration to take a project from a small desk test to a published reality.
About the Presenters
Dr. Katie Mahoney
NWTC Chemistry Instructor
As the initial driving force behind the project, Dr. Mahoney started with small, experimental tests on alginate films before inspiring the team to expand into full agricultural trials. Merging her chemistry expertise with biology, she managed the daily lab work and plant care while ensuring the project moved steadily from an initial idea to a formal publication.
Dr. Marc Ditty
NWTC Anatomy Instructor
Stepping outside his traditional domain of human anatomy, Dr. Ditty jumped headfirst into agricultural fieldwork this summer. He relied on shared team knowledge and critical thinking to help construct the indoor and outdoor trial frameworks, analyze macroscopic spinach growth data, and map out the study's overall structural design.
Dr. Angelo Kolokithas
NWTC Microbiology Instructor and Research Mentor
Known for pushing collaborative research to the limit, Dr. Kolokithas guided this summer's interdisciplinary team through complex microbiology techniques, GFP transformations to track bacteria, and the intricacies of the formal scientific publication process.
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