Recognizing Plant Direct authors: Mendel Perkins

Mendel Perkins, first author of Dwarfism of high-monolignol Arabidopsis plants is rescued by ectopic LACCASE overexpression

Current Position: PhD candidate at the University of British Columbia in Lacey Samuels lab

Education: BSc (Hons) University of Calgary; MSc University of Calgary

Non-scientific Interests: music, cycling, hiking

Brief bio: My interest in plants was fostered by growing up on a grain farm on the Alberta prairies and working in a horticultural greenhouse as a teenager. At the University of Calgary I worked first with Dr. Maria Strack on carbon cycling in northern Alberta wetland environments. I went into the field and made measurements of tree stands and smaller plant biomass and measured their responses to simulated climate change. This work led my interest to move from those much larger scales into the smaller cellular and molecular scales within plants. That led me into my Masters work with Dr. Marcus Samuel where we developed cold tolerance traits in the oilseed Canola. I am now completing my PhD under the supervision of Lacey Samuels at the University of British Columbia. I am working on inter-related projects addressing the transport of lignin precursors and related phenolic compounds.