Michigan State University (MSU) is a public land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan. The Lebeis Lab is part of MSU’s Department of Plant, Soil and Microbial Science. It aims to uncover how plants and microbes each contribute to host microbiome assembly, which is essential as we move from basic lab experiments into development of biological products with significant impact on improving food production to meet increasing global demands. While we investigate several plant systems, our work in soybeans primary focuses on how biological products improve drought tolerance and impact natural rhizobia interactions in soybean fields.