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PMB Grad Program

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PMB graduate program faculty

The graduate faculty in plant and microbial biology are drawn from a number of academic departments in the College of Biological Sciences and the College of Food, Agricultural, and Natural Resource Sciences.

Prospective students: We strongly encourage you to contact faculty members to discuss research interests, whether the professor(s) with whom you are interested in working are taking students, and whether your interests and experiences are a good fit with their lab(s).


    PMB graduate program faculty members

    Neil Anderson  Department of Horticulture Science
    Flower breeding/genetics, reproductive biology, invasive species research

    Jake Bailey Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences
    Ecology and physiology of marine sulfur-oxidizing lithotrophs, including the world’s largest bacteria, Thiomargarita

    Jannell Bazurto Department of Plant and Microbial Biology
    Bacterial mechanisms to manage toxic metabolites; Formaldehyde stress response systems

    Daniel Bond  Department of Plant and Microbial Biology
    Physiology and functional genomics of dissimilatory Fe(III)-reducing bacteria; microbial fuel cells

    Yaniv Brandvain  Department of Plant and Microbial Biology
    Population diversity in flowering plants

    Clay Carter  Department of Plant and Microbial Biology
    Plant molecular and cellular biology

    Jeannine Cavender-Bares  Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior
    Physiological ecology of plants; phylogenetic structure of communities, particularly within oak forests; plant-mycorrhizal interactions; impacts of global change on plants

    Jerry Cohen  Department of Horticultural Science
    Plant signal molecular biochemistry and plant systems biology

    Kyle Costa  Department of Plant and Microbial Biology
    Microbial metabolism, anaerobic microbiology

    James Cotner  Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior
    Biological limnology and oceanography, biogeochemistry, microbial ecology

    Shaun Curtin  Department of Agronomy and Plant Genetics
    Legume and cereal transformation; legume genomics; genome editing

    Ford Denison  Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior
    Evolution of legume-rhizobium mutualism; nodule physiology; crop ecology

    Kathryn Fixen  Department of Plant and Microbial Biology
    Microbial physiology, nitrogen fixation, anoxygenic photosynthesis

    Sue Gibson  Department of Plant and Microbial Biology
    Using genomics and genetics to characterize the effects of sugar levels on plant metabolism and development

    Jeff Gralnick  Department of Plant and Microbial Biology
    Genetics, Physiology and Synthetic Biology of Environmental Bacteria

    William Gray  Department of Plant and Microbial Biology
    Molecular basis of auxin-regulated growth and development; ubiquitin-mediated proteolysis

    Kathleen Greenham  Department of Plant and Microbial Biology
    Computational and network analysis of diurnal and circadian regulation of abiotic stress response

    Briana Gross  Department of Biology (UMN - Duluth)
    Plant evolutionary genetics

    Julie Grossman  Department of Horticultural Science
    Plant-soil-microbe relationships in organic and agroecological farming systems

    Trinity Hamilton  Department of Plant and Microbial Biology
    Microbial ecology and physiology in extreme environments 

    Will Harcombe  Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior

    Adrian Hegeman  Department of Horticultural Science
    Systems biology and biotechnology

    Candice Hirsch  Department of Agronomy and Plant Genetics

    Fumiaki Katagiri  Department of Plant and Microbial Biology
    Systems biology of disease resistance mechanisms

    Peter Kennedy  Department of Plant and Microbial Biology
    Diversity and function of fungal and bacterial symbioses of plants

    Devanshi Khokhani  Department of Plant Pathology
    Virulence mechanisms of bacterial plant pathogens and multitrophic interactions including nitrogen-fixing bacteria, mycorrhizal fungi and crop plants

    Amelia Lindsey  Department of Entomology
    Mechanisms, evolution, and functional genomics of intracellular microbes in insects

    Georgiana May  Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior; Department of Plant and Microbial Biology
    Evolution of fungal populations, molecular evolution of plant resistance and plant-pathogen interactions

    David Moeller  Department of Plant and Microbial Biology
    Evolutionary biology, adaptation in natural plant populations, species' geographic range limits, speciation, and mating system evolution

    Peter Morrell  Department of Agronomy and Plant Genetics
    Computational biology

    Gary Muehlbauer  Department of Agronomy and Plant Genetics
    Barley and wheat molecular genetics

    Min Ni  Department of Plant and Microbial Biology
    Light signal transduction and photomorphogenesis

    Thomas Niehaus  Department of Plant and Microbial Biology
    Plant and microbial metabolism, metabolite damage and repair

    Neil Olszewski  Department of Plant and Microbial Biology
    Molecular mechanisms of hormone action; molecular genetics of DNA viruses

    Jennifer Powers  Departments of Ecology, Evolution & Behavior; Plant and Microbial Biology
    Terrestrial biogeochemistry, ecosystem processes, microbial ecology, tropical ecology and landscape ecology

    Walid Sadok  Department of Agronomy and Plant Genetics
    Crop physiology; abiotic stress tolerance

    Jonathan Schilling  Department of Plant and Microbial Biology
    Fungal biology and plant decomposition

    Laura Shannon  Department of Horticultural Science
    Population and quantitative genetics of potato domestication and diversity; Genomics of ploidy

    Ruth Shaw  Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior
    Evolutionary genetics of plant populations

    Kevin Silverstein  Supercomputing Institute

    Alan Smith  Department of Horticultural Science
    Molecular genetics and manipulation of plant reproduction.

    Daniel Stanton  Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior
    Plant-environment interactions; ccology and ecophysiology of bryophytes, lichens and vascular plants; ecosystem ecology

    Robert Stupar  Department of Agronomy and Plant Genetics
    Legume molecular genetics and translational genomics

    Peter Tiffin  Department of Plant and Microbial Biology
    Evolutionary and ecological genetics; molecular and phenotypic evolution of plant defenses

    Michael Travisano  Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior
    Understanding how life forms have come to exist, what causes biological diversity and complexity, starting with very simple biological systems

    Daniel Voytas  Department of Genetics, Cell Biology, and Development
    Plant genome engineering through homologous recombination; Retrotransposable elements and genome organization

    John Ward  Department of Plant and Microbial Biology
    Membrane proteins and transport physiology

    George Weiblen  Department of Plant and Microbial Biology
    Botany, molecular phylogenetics, coevolution, plant/insect interactions

    Ya Yang  Department of Plant and Microbial Biology, University of Minnesota Herbarium
    Plant systematics, evolutionary genomics

    Feng Zhang  Department of Plant and Microbial Biology
    Plant genome editing, synthetic biology, DNA repair

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    • About the department
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