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Plant and Microbial Biology
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PMB Grad Program

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PMB Graduate Program faculty members

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.

PMB Graduate Program Governance and Faculty Handbook

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).

 

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

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

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

Milton Drott  Department of Plant Pathology
Population genomics of plant pathogens with a focus on secondary metabolite discovery, microbial ecology, and bioinformatics

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
Microbial interactions, eco-evolutionary dynamics, systems biology

Adrian Hegeman  Department of Horticultural Science
Systems biology and biotechnology

Candice Hirsch  Department of Agronomy and Plant Genetics
Translational genomics in maize

Jake Jungers  Department of Agronomy and Plant Genetics
Agroecology, crop diversity, nutrient cycling in agroecosystems, grass/legume intercropping

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

Maowei Liang  Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve 
Biodiversity, ecosystem function, and stability

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

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

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

Ivan Radin  Department of Plant and Microbial Biology 
We are interested in the evolution of the organellar mechanics in the green lineage.

Andrew Read  Department of Agronomy and Plant Genetics 
Genetics and epigenetics of plant disease resistance with a focus on wheat and oats

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.

Chris Smith-Martin Department of Plant and Microbial Biology
 

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

Sasha Wright  Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior 
Community ecology, plant-plant facilitation, and climate change

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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