After six months in the lab, Marriam made great progress on her PhD thesis research (including identifying the rhizobia she isolated from peas and chickpeas using 16S DNA sequence and using thin-layer chromatography to identify the AHLs they produce). Mohsin wrote grant proposals, isolated total DNA from a set of soil samples that we are having Illumina sequenced at the nifH locus, and obtained a job offer in Chihuaua, Mexico. We will be writing manuscripts while they are in Pakistan for a few months before they start their year in Mexico.