Profiles of Plant Scientists

From abstract algebra to zoology, women participate in science, technology, engineering and medicine (STEM), but sometimes their stories are not as well known as those of their male colleagues. To remedy this, PhD student Josie Maidment is conducting a one-year Twitter education campaign called "@365womeninSTEM,"…

About 30 years ago, a young geneticist in Boston did a seemingly simple experiment: she planted seeds and watched how they fared in light or darkness. First, though, she soaked the seeds in a solution with a DNA-damaging chemical. She hoped that a few of the induced flaws might serendipitously land…

A bright future for sustainable agriculture May 28, 2017 Passionate plant scientist Mark Tester conducts ground-breaking research into plants that could one day help feed the world. Imagine a scenario where crops, such as barley, rice and quinoa, are grown in near-desert conditions, in poor-quality…

Rakesh David, featured first author of Transcriptome-wide Mapping of RNA 5-Methylcytosine in Arabidopsis mRNAs and non-coding RNAs Current Position: Postdoctoral Fellow, ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Energy Biology, University of Adelaide. Education: PhD, Plant Molecular Biology, Plant Science…

May 2017, MIT Technology Review by James Temple Reinventing Rice for a World Transformed by Climate Change UC Davis plant geneticist Pamela Ronald wants to create rice varieties that can survive in harsher conditions, including more frequent droughts. "Pamela Ronald stands in front of two rows of…

Andrew Groover is a scientist with the US Forest Service in Davis California and holds a faculty position at UC Davis. He was recently profiled in New Phytologist. What inspired your interest in plant science? I grew up spending much of my time exploring the woods by the Chattahoochee River…

"A curiosity for disease and a passion to cure led Mezzalama to a career as a plant pathologist. While studying for an undergraduate degree in agronomy in her hometown of Turin, Italy, she visited nearby vineyards to study plant pathogens for the first time. “It was working in the vineyards where…

The British Society for Plant Pathology (BSPP) has created a set of profiles of people with careers in plant pathology. Some are available as webpages and others as PDFs. A few examples: Molecular Plant Virologist Katherine A. Steele Plant Disease Advisor Fiona Burnett Professor of Plant…