Morgan Sobol, PhD
Principal Investigator
Assistant Professor, Department of Biology
Morgan grew up in Texas and earned her BS in Biology and MS in Marine Biology from Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi, as first-generation college student. It was during this time that she became interested in microbial ecology and evolution, particularly how these fields intersect with astrobiology. She went on to complete her PhD at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany, where she developed single-cell ‘omic tools to study environmental microbes. After her PhD, Morgan was a NASA Astrobiology Postdoctoral Fellow in the Kaçar Lab at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where she explored the evolution of nitrogenase. When not in lab, Morgan enjoys spending time with her dogs and her husband, reading fantasy novels, and exploring the outdoors.
Amber Busboom
PhD Student
Amber received her B. S. in Molecular Cell Biology from California State University San Marcos in 2005. She then joined the Lai lab in the Neuropharmacology Department at The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA., where she worked as a research assistant creating bacterial artificial chromosomes for transgenic mouse studies. After returning to Texas to be near family, she joined Rigaku Americas Corporation in The Woodlands as a senior lab technician where she worked in protein crystallography and X-ray diffraction until she moved to Wimberley to raise her children in the beautiful Texas hill country in 2013. Amber began graduate studies at Texas State University in 2023 where she developed a qPCR assay to identify and quantify a polymicrobial community that resides in the Water Recovery System onboard the International Space Station as a member of the McLean lab and earned her master’s degree in the summer of 2025. She is excited to continue her studies as a PhD student in the Sobol Lab. Outside of school she is a band mom, hockey wife, and lavender farmer.
Cirilo J Martinez Diaz
Undergraduate Researcher
I’m a biology student at Texas State with a background in healthcare. I work as a patient care technician and also help in Dr. Sobol’s lab, where I’ve been setting things up and working with R. palustris. I’m hoping to learn more about computational tools and get more involved in research. I hope to pursue an MD/PhD and keep learning about science and medicine. I don’t have it all figured out, but I know I care about science and people, and I’m trying to find a way to do both.
This could be you! If interested, check out potential opportunities here.