Kathleen Greenham
612-624-5145
greenham@umn.edu
Office Address

1445 Gortner Avenue
St. Paul, MN 55108
United States

Kathleen

Greenham

Assistant Professor
Plant and Microbial Biology
Lab Website

Our lab focuses on deciphering how internal timekeeping regulates plant growth by coordinating physiological and metabolic processes with the environment. We are examining how intraspecific variation in gene regulatory networks alters physiological and metabolic responses to abiotic stress in Arabidopsis thaliana and Brassica rapa. We are also investigating how cell-type specific circadian clock networks influence tissue level functions.

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Research statement

We are working on developing temporal networks of genomic and physiological responses to abiotic stress to address the following questions: (1) How are diurnal processes coordinated in the plant to maximize fitness? (2) How are stress responses integrated into these diurnal processes? (3) Can we optimize the temporal stress response to increase tolerance while maintaining fitness? Rather than thinking of stress response as on or off, my lab aims to fine-tune the timing of response using a phase-based approach. Candidate genes will be selected using network modeling that integrate temporal datasets of transcript, metabolite and physiology profiles.

Selected publications

Greenham K*, Guadagno CR*, Gehan MA, Mockler TC, Weinig C, Ewers, BE, McClung CR (2017). Temporal network analysis identifies early physiological and transcriptomic indicators of mild drought in Brassica rapa. eLife. 18(6). doi: 10.7554/eLife.29655 *These authors contributed equally. 
    
Greenham K*, Lou P*, Puzey JR, Kumar G, Arnevik C, Farid H, Willis JH, McClung CR (2016). Geographic variation of plant circadian clock function in natural and agricultural settings. J Biol Rhythms. 32(1):26-34. *These authors contributed equally. 
    
Greenham K, McClung CR. (2015) Integrating circadian dynamics with physiological processes in plants. Nat. Gen. Rev. 16:598-610. 
    
Greenham K*, Lou P*, Remsen SE, Farid H, McClung CR (2015). TRiP: Tracking Rhythms in Plants, an automated leaf movement analysis program for high-throughput circadian period estimation. Plant Methods. 11:33. *These authors contributed equally. 

Education and background

  • B.S. - Queen's University, 2006 
  • Ph.D. - University of California, San Diego, 2011 
  • NSF-NPGI Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2012-2015 
  • Postdoc - Dartmouth College, 2018