Plantae Presents: Alejandra I. Huerta and Paola Reyes-Caldas

Plantae Presents – Alejandra I. Huerta and Paola Reyes-Caldas 

Recorded Tuesday Sep 8, 2020 9:00 PM EDT (6:00 PM PDT)

Alejandra I. Huerta: In pursuit of durable disease resistance in rice: Exploiting effectors, allelic variation and MAGIC

Alejandra I. Huerta is an Assistant Professor of Phytobacteriology in the Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology at North Carolina State University. She obtained a B.A. in Arts in Spanish and Portuguese from the University of California, Santa Barbara and a B.S. in Chemistry from the University of California, Santa Cruz. She earned her Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin-Madison as an NSF Graduate Research Fellow investigating the role of proteinaceous toxins in intra-species competition in the Ralstonia solancearum species complex. She then pursued postdoctoral work at Colorado State University as an NSF and USDA-NIFA Postdoctoral Fellow to study plant host resistance mechanisms to bacterial pathogens using Xanthomonas spp. and rice as a model system. She is passionate about and actively engaged in various efforts to promote agricultural research, effective mentoring strategies, and STEM education. @Alitalamorenita

Paola Reyes-Caldas: Investigating the role of Candidatus Liberibacter solanacearum effectors activity in solanaceous hosts

Paola Reyes-Caldas is a Ph.D. candidate at Gitta Coaker’s Lab, currently investigating the activity and targets of Candidatus Liberibacter solanacearum effectors in tomato. Originally from Colombia, she received her undergraduate and masters in Microbiology at Universidad de Los Andes (Bogotá). In 2017 she received a Fulbright scholarship to pursue a Ph.D. degree in plant pathology at the University of California, Davis.