One morning in early February I received an unusual email. It was from my colleague here at University of Florida, Dr. David Oppenheimer. It simply said, “FYI”, and was followed by a note from university General Counsel that email records were demanded back to 2012 under auspices of Florida Sunshine, or Freedom of Information Act … Read more
Eric Hamilton, from Washington University in St. Louis (WUSTL), has been awarded the 2015 ASPB/AAAS Mass Media Science & Engineering Fellowship. He will spend 10 weeks this summer training as a science journalist at the Milwaukee Journal- Sentinel in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Eric is a PhD candidate in the Plant and Microbial Biosciences program at WUSTL, … Read more
This past February, we asked for ideas to name the new online home for the plant science community (due to launch this summer) that we are building in partnership with the Global Plant Council. Our community’s creativity was amply demonstrated in the great ideas we received. We reduced the initial list to the most viable options … Read more
We are pleased to announce that our nominee, Channapatna Prakash of Tuskegee University, was named the 2015 Borlaug Council for Agricultural Science and Technology (CAST) Communication Award for outstanding efforts using his research and communication skills to promote food production. The announcement was made this morning at a National Press Club event in Washington, DC. Borlaug … Read more
The ASPB Midwestern regional section held its annual meeting on Saturday, March 21 and Sunday, March 22 at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in St. Louis, MO. Over 150 attendees from 37 institutions across the Midwest were present for 32 oral presentations and over 70 posters. The presentations were primarily given by undergraduate and … Read more
Dr. Bob Goldberg is well known for his research contributions to plant biology, particularly in the area of reproductive development. He has generated fundamental discoveries that have also resulted in applications in industry, such as the development of the Barnase-Barstar male sterility system together with PGS in Belgium. Bob later served as cofounder and director … Read more
Dr. Craig Pikaard, Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Indiana University, Bloomington, is honored for his seminal work and important discoveries in the fields of nucleolar dominance, gene silencing, and the role and function of the atypical polymerases IV and V. Craig will convene the Martin Gibbs Medal Symposium at Plant Biology 2016. The Martin Gibbs Medal, … Read more
Dr. Caren Chang is well known for her pioneering work in ethylene signaling, and she has continued to contribute significantly in this area by elucidating signaling mechanisms and physical connections among the different players in the ethylene-signaling pathway. By helping to fill major long-standing gaps in the pathway, Caren’s work has provided new advances in … Read more
The 2015 Excellence in Education Award acknowledges the outstanding contributions of Dr. Stanley Roux. During a career spanning more than thirty years, Stan has made a considerable impact at his institution by expanding the curriculum while developing and adopting innovative pedagogical methods. Both in the classroom and in his laboratory, Stan has emphasized meaningful hands … Read more
Dr. Joe Louis is recognized for his significant contributions to the field of plant insect interactions, as well as for his demonstrated excellence in outreach, public service, mentoring and teaching. Joe’s research work has shown that specific elicitors delivered by insects are recognized by plants to induce innate defense mechanisms. His research publications are in … Read more
Corresponding Member status is conferred by election on the annual ASPB ballot. This honor, initially given in 1932, provides life membership and Society publications to distinguished plant biologists outside the United States. Renate Scheibe, University of Osnabrueck, Germany Renate Scheibe is a leading contributor to our understanding of redox regulation in plants, extending from metabolic … Read more
The Early Career Award acknowledges outstanding research by a scientist generally not more than seven years post-Ph.D. This year’s Early Career Award recipient is Dr. Daniel Chitwood, who is recognized for his extraordinary contributions to the systems analysis of large, diverse and complex data sets that encompass morphological and 3 molecular traits. The methods that … Read more
Dr. Maria Harrison, Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Science, has pioneered studies of phosphate acquisition in arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) symbioses using the model legume Medicago truncatula. In particular, her findings that phosphate transport is linked to maintenance of symbiosis and that plants use classic hormone signaling pathways for regulation of the AM symbiosis have ushered … Read more
Wendy F. Boss, North Carolina State University, Raleigh This year’s Charles Reid Barnes Life Membership Award for lifelong service in plant biology goes to Wendy F. Boss. Wendy is recognized for her trailblazing three decades of work in the particularly challenging fields of phosphoinositide biochemistry and inositol phosphate signaling pathways; for her outstanding roles in … Read more
Cyril Zipfel, who heads The Sainsbury Laboratory, is the 2015 recipient of the Charles Albert Shull Award. Cyril played a leading role in the discovery of pattern-triggered immunity in plants, including the characterization of the bacterial peptides flagellin (flg22) and EF-Tu (elf18) as pattern-associated molecular markers that activate signaling by the receptor-like kinases FLS2 and … Read more
The inaugural 2015 ASPB Innovation Prize for Agricultural Technology is awarded jointly to Sherri Brown, David Fischhoff, Mike Koziel, and Fred Perlak. Their leadership of pioneering research and development teams led to the engineering of commercially viable varieties of cotton and corn that express derivatives of insecticidal proteins from Bacillus thuringiensis. The insect-resistant crops that … Read more
We are proud to be a partner and join with the National Park Foundation to support the 2015 White House Easter Egg Roll. In addition to having volunteers on site, ASPB will have several plant science experts, the My Life as a Plant activity book, and mini garden necklaces to help kids dig into plant … Read more
Over the past 24 months, we have been working diligently to develop a new community platform for the global plant science community. This new platform, which we have given the working title of “the Plant Science Exchange” (PSX) will launch this summer. All plant science students and professionals are invited to join. The initial level of … Read more
We are currently recruiting volunteers to help with several career-related activities. 1. In-Person Career Chats at Plant Biology 2015 This year we will also be hosting informal career conversations in the Career Center — Q&A style. There will be five sessions throughout the meeting, each centered on a different career path that could include any of the following … Read more
Students in the University of Maryland-Baltimore Campus (UMBC) Plant Molecular Biology course taught by Prof. Hua Lu can earn extra-point opportunities for the course this semester by participating in the Fascination of Plants Day on May 18th. The class will conduct events on the UMBC campus, such as making a poster to show how great plants … Read more
