Faculty
Teh-hui Kao
Chair, Intercollege Graduate Degree Program in Plant Biology; Distinguished Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Molecular, biochemical, and structural bases of the S-RNase-based self-incompatibility system in flowering plants. F-box protein-mediated ubiquitination and degradation of proteins.
Joshua Kellogg
Emphasis Area Representative, Molecular Toxicology; Assistant Professor of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences
Development of new metabolomics tools for chemical and biological characterization of complex systems. Discovery of new natural products from plants and microorganisms with novel bioactivity against pathogenic fungi and neglected tropical diseases. Bioanalytical techniques to probe the mechanism of action and basic biology of these target organisms. Ethnobotany and indigenous knowledge surrounding plant-based medicine.
Armen Kemanian
Professor of Production Systems and Modeling
Agricultural Systems, Agricultural and Natural Systems Modeling, Soil Carbon and Nitrogen Cycling, Bioenergy Systems, Coupled Hydrologic and Nutrient Modeling, and Plant Competition
Shanthanu Krishna Kumar
Assistant Professor of Tree Fruit
Tree fruit production. Plant growth regulators. Physiology and source-sink relationships. Crop load management. Post-harvest physiology.
Joshua Lambert
Professor of Food Science
Dietary polyphenols in prevention of obesity and fatty liver disease; efficacy and mechanisms of action of food-derived phytochemicals in prevention of lung cancer; biotransformation, bioavailability and potential hepatotoxicity of dietary phytochemicals
Impact of food and medicinal plants and phytochemicals on human health. Role of plant genetics, environmental factors, agronomic practices, and post-harvest processing in moderating the relationship between medicinal and food plants and human health
Jesse Lasky
Associate Professor of Biology
Ecological and evolutionary genomics, genetic and ecophysiological basis of adaptation to environmental stress, evolutionary ecology of biological complexity.
Laura Leites
Research Professor of Quantitative Forest Ecology
Adaptation to climate in forest trees, seed movement under a changing climate, forest ecosystem modeling.
Hong Ma
Huck Chair in Plant Reproductive Development and Evolution; Professor of Biology
Plant development under favorable and stressful conditions; phylogeny and evolutionary biology of plant groups containing major crops and ecologically important species.
James Marden
Associate Director of Operations, Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences; Professor of Biology
How physiological variation within species affects their ecology and evolution. Primarily with insects, but recently also with plants, and a particular interest in allelic variation in the pathogen resistance genes of tropical trees.
Siela Maximova
Research Professor of Plant Biotechnology Co-Director, Endowed Program in the Molecular Biology of Cocoa
Molecular basis of plant-pathogen and plant-endophyte interactions. Biotechnology of tree crops. Development of sustainable energy crops.
Timothy McNellis
Associate Professor of Plant Pathology & Environmental Microbiology
Genetics, molecular biology and physiology of plant interactions with phytopathogenic bacteria. Signal transduction events involved in plant disease resistance. Genetic control of plant hypersensitive cell death.
Melanie Miller Foster
Associate Teaching Professor
Educator professional development with a focus on fostering global competence.
Odette Mina
Managing Director, Energy and Environmental Sustainability Laboratories
Fate and transport of emerging contaminants in the environment
Gabriele Monshausen
Associate Professor of Biology
Plant cell signaling. Hormonal and mechanical signal transduction in plant growth regulation. Live cell imaging of subcellular microdomains of ionic signaling.
Felipe Montes
Assistant Research Professor
Modeling of agricultural production systems, greenhouse gas emissions, water quality and environmental impacts; Advanced instrumentation and field research techniques for collecting data to feed the process-based models; Bioenergy and biomass production, green house mitigation, life cycle analysis and carbon footprint determination, whit emphasis on shrub coppice willow
B. Tracy Nixon
Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Structural and functional basis of cellulose synthesis. Using Physcomitrella patens and other organisms as model systems, we are learning how plants make cellulose for building new cell wall. The studies use methods of molecular biology and cryoEM to characterize the enzyme as a monomer, and when it assembles into its larger 'Cellulose Synthase Complex '(CSC for short). The aim is to understand cellulose synthesis to explain fundamentals of cell wall biology in plants, and to enable manipulation of its synthesis for applications in fields of bioenergy and materials.
Kari Peter
Associate Research Professor of Tree Fruit Pathology
Commercial tree fruit disease management: Diseases of stone and pome fruit, especially those caused by bacteria, apple fruit rots, soilborne fungi, and emerging issues; Extesion programming for integrated management for pre- and postharvest tree fruit diseases and fungicide resistance