As an MCB graduate student in the Hazen Lab, Dominick Matos made several key discoveries. First he described the development of stem internodes. This is a key region of energy crops that accounts for a majority of the harvestable biomass. While the arrangement of vascular bundles varies among grasses, the anatomy of the vascular bundles themselves is very similar. By making observations over time, it was noted that the vascular bundles are the first to mature followed by non-vascular fiber cells. The results of these studies are described in PLoS ONE. Dominick and colleagues also measured stem and leaf development within the course of a day. Here they developed a time lapse imaging systems and measure leaf length under various conditions. Unlike arabidopsis and other dicots, B. distachyon did not exhibit circadian clock or photo cycles regulated growth. These results suggest that grasses have a very different mechanism for regulating time of day specific growth. The results of these studies are described in PLoS ONE.