Recognizing Plant Physiology authors: Elizabeth Chatt

Elizabeth Chatt, first author of Nectar biosynthesis is conserved among floral and extrafloral nectaries

Current Position: Postdoctoral Scientist, Research & Development, Corteva Agriscience

Education: Ph.D. in Plant Biology (Iowa State University); B.S. in Biotechnology (University of Wisconsin-River Falls)

Non-scientific Interests: cooking, gardening, running

Brief biography:  My interest in plant biology research was sparked as an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls working towards a bachelor’s degree in biotechnology. I took all the plant science elective courses I could fit into my schedule and completed summer research internships at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center and Michigan State University. These experiences encouraged me to pursue a doctorate in plant biology at Iowa State University within Dr. Basil Nikolau’s lab. My dissertation work focused on integrating ‘omics’ datasets to characterize conserved nectar production mechanisms using floral and extrafloral eudicot nectaries. The work detailed in this manuscript was the core project of my dissertation. Using cotton nectaries to study the conservation of nectar production mechanisms gave me the opportunity to integrate transcriptomics and metabolomics datasets in the context of the varied ecological functions and morphological structures of each nectary type. Continuing on with ‘omics’ based research projects, I was a postdoctoral researcher at Washington University in St. Louis using proteomics to study autophagy in maize within Dr. Richard Vierstra’s lab. Currently, I am a postdoctoral scientist at Corteva Agriscience working within a group focused on the development of sequencing and single cell technologies.