This year, the Sharma Lab trekked across Gainesville to Austin Cary Forest to host a lab retreat.  Our lab retreats comprise of scientific sessions where each lab member gives a presentation. This year, the focus was on considering the field as a whole and identifying gaps in the literature that we may be uniquely positioned to target. The retreat resulted in a lively brainstorming session on ways to take our research to the next level. At lunch, lab alumnus, Dr. Shannon Brown and Tiffany Conklin met with current Sharma Lab students over zoom to give professional advice on how to best leverage our skills to secure a job.

Following the scientific discussions, we traversed to Gainesville Escapology, an escape room, where we worked to solve puzzles to escape before time ran out. With the brain power of 3 doctors, 5 graduate students, and 1 brilliant undergraduate student, we were able to escape just in the knick of time!