Profiles of Plant Scientists

This month we will be highlighting Alexander von Humboldt, who lived from 1769-1859. While he wasn't a classically trained plant scientist, he has had an enormous impact in our field, particularly in the dissemination of research to the public. Von Humboldt is most known for his expeditions to South…

Over the course of a year, Alyssa highlight posted a short biography of a different member of the plant science community, sharing some of the highlights of different disciplines of our beloved plant research. First up is Norman Borlaug, a name familiar to most people who have been around the plant…

By Mishi Vachev, Conviron Scholar Jason Cavatorta is the owner of his own plant breeding and seed distribution company, Earthworks Seeds, in Orlando, FL. His seed is mainly marketed to home-growers and is often heirloom varieties of tomatoes, peppers, melons, and many more crops. He started his own…

Plant geneticist Dame Ottoline Leyser talks to Alison Woollard about the difference between working with animal and plant genomes, and her work to make science more inclusive The Biologist 64(4) p16-19 Dame Ottoline Leyser is a professor of plant development at the University of Cambridge.…

Elizabeth Henry, featured first author of Direct and Indirect Visualization of Bacterial Effector Delivery into Diverse Plant Cell Types During Infection Current Position: Postdoctoral Scholar, Discovery and Project Support in Crop Efficiency and Seed Growth, Biologics R&D at Bayer Crop Science. Education:…

CropLife International has a series called "Food Heroes" - recently they profiled plant scientist Sophien Kamoun. Why did you want to be a plant scientist? I became a scientist because I grew up being extremely curious about the natural world. I wanted to know how living organisms function. How they…

Current Biology interviews Jane Langdale, Professor in the Department of Plant Sciences at Oxford University. Jane Langdale received a PhD in human genetics from the University of London. For her postdoc, she switched to plant genetics, working with Tim Nelson at Yale University on maize leaf development.…

Young Wha Lee, Data Scientist at Monsanto, talks about searching for a career that bridges interests and gives joy, and how to approach industry jobs.  In the Decoding Life series, we talk to geneticists with diverse career paths, tracing the many directions possible after research training. This…