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Faculty

Affiliated Faculty

TPSC affiliated faculty represent 5 colleges and 8 academic departments on campus.

Our growing community collaborates in unique ways to support sustainable production of food, feed, and biomaterial issues by improving yield, disease resistance, adaptation to a changing environment, plant metabolism, and metabolic engineering. 

Together we teach the next generation of plant scientists, engage stakeholders, and facilitate cutting edge science to sustain and improve agricultural productivity.

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Areas of Research

Plant pathogen biology, ecology; apple and pear fruit trees

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Areas of Research

Environmental microbiology; water and soil quality

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Areas of Research

Phonemics of currently grown crops with an emphasis on peanuts and future crops

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Areas of Research

Fundamental and translational studies toward crop improvement through genome-editing and tissue-culture

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Areas of Research

Invasive plant ecology, biofuel ecology, allelopathy, risk assessment, weed science

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Areas of Research

Genomics of tree development, ecophysiology and adaptation; molecular genetics of tree maturation, flowering and crown architecture; epigenetic mechanisms and small RNAs in trees; long-distance signaling in trees

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Areas of Research

Regulation of metabolism during seed filling and seed metabolic engineering, multi-omics approaches, plant metabolic engineering

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Areas of Research

Forest pathology; bioinformatics; endophytes and the tree microbiome

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Areas of Research

Precision agricultlure; climate adaptation and vulnerability; and policy and governance

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Areas of Research

Evolutionary ecological genomics; genetics in plant defense and physiology

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Population and evolutionary genomics, genome-enabled breeding, evolutionary ecology

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Areas of Research

Environmental microbial ecology, plant-microbe interactions, geobiology, and extremophiles

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Areas of Research

Plant specialized metabolism, poison ivy urushiol metabolism, and chemical ecology

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Areas of Research

Abiotic stress, physiology, molecular biology, genomics and bioinformatics, and specialized metabolism

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Areas of Research

Plant genomics and bioinformatics, machine learning, and high throughput phenotyping

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Areas of Research

Robotics; autonomous and dynamical systems

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Areas of Research

Phytochemical content of fruits and legumes, and increasing iron bioavailability of legume grains

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Areas of Research

Plant-pathogen interactions

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Areas of Research

Genome–phenome relationship using statistical and quantitative genetics and its application to plant breeding

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Areas of Research

Regulation of amino acid transport and metabolism in Arabidopsis; and determinants of seed protein content in soybean

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Areas of Research

Genomics, and crop improvement

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Areas of Research

SmartFarm Innovation Network™ : SmartTechnologies for crop and the green industries; data analytics, decisions, and machine learning for food, agriculture, communities, and health systems; and precision agriculture technologies

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Areas of Research

Small grains breeding program to produce superior wheat and barley varieties for eastern North America; integrating latest genotyping and phenotyping technologies to accelerate genetic improvement for new and changing environments; and quantitative genetics theory

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Areas of Research

Bacterial motility and chemotaxis; sensing of environmental signals, two-component signal transduction, the speed-variable flagellar motor, flagellotropic phage infection, function of type IV pili in symbiosis, tumor-targeting Salmonella

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Areas of Research

Airborne plant pathogens and ice-nucleating microbes; mycotoxins

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Areas of Research

Avoiding frost damage in apple and peach; enhancing annual bearing in apple; evaluation of apple varieties, rootstocks and high-density training systems; improving apple fruit quality and shelf-life of peaches and cherries; efficacy of non-chemical methods to control disease of apple and peach

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Areas of Research

Biology, functional genomics, and biochemistry of chemical communication

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Jim Tokuhisa
Assistant Professor of Practice, Biological Sciences
Department of Biological Sciences
Google Scholar

Areas of Research

Biochemical and molecular mechanisms of chemical defense fitness in higher plants

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Areas of Research

Genome-based classification and identification of plant pathogens and biocontrol agents; and biological ice nucleation activity

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Areas of Research

Viral replication mechanisms and virus-host interactions of positive-strand RNA viruses

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Areas of Research

Flavonoid production in stressed potatoes ; pine drought stress; and orchid mycorrihizal relations

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Areas of Research

Parasitic plants; plant communication; and weed evolution

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Susan Whitehead
Associate Professor of Biological Sciences
Department of Biological Sciences
Google Scholar

Areas of Research

Plant evolutionary responses to multi-species interactions; chemical ecology of seed dispersal and fruit defense; domestication and plant defense; agricultural applications of chemical ecology

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Areas of Research

Microbial ecology; plant growth promotion; rhizobium spp.; mycorrhizae; land management; natural ecosystems

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Areas of Research

Characterization of the architecture and localization of the Arabidopsis flavonoid enzyme complex using a variety of molecular, biochemical, and cell biological techniques

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Areas of Research

Plant development, hormone signaling, genetic engineering of yield/resistance/added-value crop traits, genetic variation, protein engineering, biosensors, directed evolution, and synthetic biology

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Areas of Research

Identification of aroma and flavor compounds in food systems; characterization of aroma/flavor formation pathways; convenient synthesis of highly unstable odorants; and applying novel engineering solutions to existing difficulties in flavor manufacturing

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Areas of Research

Plant Pathology; host-microbe interactions; and data science

Areas of Research

Soybean breeding; and crop genetics

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Areas of Research

Molecular plant-microbe interactions; plant biotechnology; and controlled-environment agriculture