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).
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
Beatriz Baselga Cervera Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior
Experimental evolution, microbial communities and eco-evolutionary dynamics
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
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
Rebecca Montgomery Department of Forest Resources
Peter Morrell Department of Agronomy and Plant Genetics
Computational biology
Matt Moscou Department of Plant Pathology
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
Integrating plant physiological ecology and forest ecology to study how environmental factors affect forests
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
Cari Vanderpool Department of Plant and Microbial Biology
Combining molecular genetics, genomics, and biochemistry to uncover RNA- and phage-based mechanisms in E. coli, Salmonella, gut Bacteroides, and plant-associated Rhizobium.
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