Maura Zimmermann was a former Ph.D. student in Tobias Baskin’s lab studying the root growth dynamics of Arabidopsis thaliana in response to moderate temperatures. She is currently working on investigating the growth dynamics and biomechanics behind leaf flatness of A. thaliana in Dr. Adrienne Roeder’s lab at Cornell University. Her research covers how temperature affects cell division and expansion in the root. She compares different genotypes of Arabidopsis thaliana plants grown at 15ºC and 25ºC, Zimmermann et al. have uncovered a variability in root cell division which is little related to root growth rate. In addition, they report that expansion and zonation are stable; and the blue-light photoreceptor, cryptochrome 2, is important for root growth –specifically cell division and elongation– at 15ºC. These results support the idea that the functional zones in the growing part of the root are maintained by cell non-autonomous mechanisms.