Plant Pathology and Plant-Microbe Biology

Field Description

For a more complete description of the field of plant pathology and plant-microbe biology, please visit the field's graduate page.

Plant pathology and plant-microbe biology are the study of plant diseases and the biology of plant-microbe interactions at the molecular to ecosystem levels of organization. The field of plant pathology and plant-microbe biology at Cornell offers graduate degree programs in plant pathology and the biology, genetics, and evolution of fungi and oomycetes.

In addition to plant pathology and plant-microbe biology, Cornell University offers graduate programs that cover the full spectrum of plant sciences. View more information on graduate studies in related fields of plant sciences.

Contact Information

Website: https://cals.cornell.edu/school-integrative-plant-science/degrees-programs/msphd-graduate-fields/msphd-field-plant-pathology-plant-microbe-biology
Email: jeb527@cornell.edu
Phone: 607 255-9573

Data and Statistics

Field Manual

Subject and Degrees

Plant Pathology

Concentrations by Subject

Plant Pathology

  • fungal and oomycete biology
  • plant pathology
  • plant-microbe biology

Faculty

Maricelis Acevedo

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Plant Pathology: fungal and oomycete biology; plant pathology
  • Research Interests: cereal rust pathology and pathogen population biology, international plant pathology aspects, host resistance

Gary Carlton Bergstrom

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Plant Pathology: fungal and oomycete biology; plant pathology; plant-microbe biology
  • Research Interests: biology, epidemiology, and integrated management of diseases of wheat, corn, soybean, forage legumes; and biofuel feedstock crops

Adam Bogdanove

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Plant Pathology: fungal and oomycete biology; plant pathology; plant-microbe biology
  • Research Interests: bacterial pathogens of plants; especially molecular interactions of Xanthomnas oryzae with rice; TAL effector biology and application; genome editing for disease resistance; fungal effector biology

Kathryn Bushley

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Plant Pathology: fungal and oomycete biology; plant pathology; plant-microbe biology
  • Research Interests: Characterization of secondary metabolism in fungi and investigating roles of secondary metabolites in host-fungal interactions. Emphasis on root endophytes and insect pathogenic and nematode parasitic fungi.

Lance E. Cadle-Davidson

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Plant Pathology: fungal and oomycete biology; plant pathology; plant-microbe biology
  • Research Interests: genetics and genomics of disease resistance; fungal and oomycete pathogens of grapevine

Clare L Casteel

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Plant Pathology: plant pathology; plant-microbe biology
  • Research Interests: Viral pathogens of plants; vector-borne plant pathogens; ecological and molecular basis of virus-host and virus-vector-host interactions; molecular basis of plant defense responses to viruses and vectors

Kerik D. Cox

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Plant Pathology: fungal and oomycete biology; plant pathology; plant-microbe biology
  • Research Interests: orchard fungal ecology; extension pathology; pesticide management; fruit pathology

Zhangjun Fei

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Plant Pathology: plant-microbe biology

Melanie Filiatrault

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Plant Pathology: plant-microbe biology
  • Research Interests: Role of small non-coding RNAs and RNA binding proteins in the biology of bacterial plant pathogens; the development of new approaches to perform global transcriptome profiling

Marc Fuchs

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Plant Pathology: plant pathology; plant-microbe biology
  • Research Interests: virus diseases of fruit and vegetable crops; biology, epidemiology and management; development of virus-resistant fruit crops by genetic engineering

David M Gadoury

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Plant Pathology: fungal and oomycete biology; plant pathology
  • Research Interests: epidemiology; ecology; pathogen biology; disease of grapevine and apples; powdery and downy mildews

Katie Gold

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Plant Pathology: fungal and oomycete biology; plant pathology
  • Research Interests: Grape Disease Ecology & Epidemiology, oomycete biology, epidemiology, and control; data science; digital agriculture; vegetative spectroscopy; proximal and remote sensing.

Maria J. Harrison

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Plant Pathology: fungal and oomycete biology; plant-microbe biology
  • Research Interests: elucidation of the molecular basis of the arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis and phosphate transport in plants

Michelle L Heck

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Plant Pathology: plant pathology; plant-microbe biology

Kathie Hodge

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Plant Pathology: fungal and oomycete biology; plant pathology; plant-microbe biology
  • Research Interests: systematics and ecology of pathogenic and symbiotic fungi, especially those that are pathogens of insects; director of the Cornell Plant Pathology Herbarium

Jian Hua

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Plant Pathology: plant-microbe biology
  • Research Interests: genetics of temperature responses in plants; regulation of plant defense responses

Lori Huberman

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Plant Pathology: fungal and oomycete biology; plant pathology; plant-microbe biology
  • Research Interests: How fungi interact with the environment Nutrient sensing in filamentous fungi High-throughput functional genomics

Awais Khan

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Plant Pathology: plant pathology; plant-microbe biology
  • Research Interests: Genetics of host disease resistance; Genetic improvement of disease resistance; Pathogen population genetics; International Agriculture; Current research focus is fungal (apple scab) and bacterial (fire blight) diseases and pathogens of apples

Magdalen Lindeberg

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Plant Pathology: fungal and oomycete biology; plant pathology
  • Research Interests: identification of virulence-associated features in plant pathogenic bacteria, including Pseudomonas Syringae pathovars and Ca. species through analysis of their genome sequences

Gregory B Martin

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Plant Pathology: fungal and oomycete biology; plant pathology
  • Research Interests: research focus is on the molecular basis of: 1) bacterial pathogenesis and host susceptibility; 2) recognition events involved in plant immunity; and 3) host signal transduction leading to defense responses; experimental approaches, including genomics, biochemistry, cell biology, molecular biology, forward and reverse genetics, and proteomics used to investigate aspects of plant-bacterial interactions

Margaret T McGrath

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Plant Pathology: plant pathology
  • Research Interests: diseases of vegetable crops; integrated pest management; fungicide resistance; epidemiology; powdery mildew; Phytophthora; air pollutants

Patricia Mowery

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Plant Pathology: plant-microbe biology
  • Research Interests: bacterial motility and sensing with emphasis on Xyllella fastidiosa

Rebecca Judith Nelson

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Plant Pathology: fungal and oomycete biology; plant pathology; plant-microbe biology
  • Research Interests: genetics of quantitative disease resistance; international agriculture; current focus on two diseases of maize that are important both in the United States and in Africa: northern corn leaf blight and gray leaf spot

Teresa Pawlowska

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Plant Pathology: fungal and oomycete biology; plant pathology; plant-microbe biology
  • Research Interests: biology and evolution of arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi (phylum Glomeromycota)

Keith Lloyd Perry

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Plant Pathology: plant pathology; plant-microbe biology
  • Research Interests: Cucumber mosaic virus and its vector transmission, pathogen diagnostics technologies, and potato viruses; Director of the NYS Foundation Potato Seed Program and the Uihlein Laboratory and Farm

Sarah Jane Pethybridge

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Plant Pathology: fungal and oomycete biology; plant pathology; plant-microbe biology

Jocelyn K. C. Rose

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Plant Pathology: fungal and oomycete biology; plant-microbe biology
  • Research Interests: structure, function and dynamics of the plant cell wall and apoplast during development and plant-pathogen interactions; coupling biochemistry with newly developed approaches involving genomics and proteomics; tomato issued as a model system to study wall and apoplastic dynamics in ripening fruits and in vegetative tissues in response to microbial challenge

Christine Durbahn Smart

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Plant Pathology: fungal and oomycete biology; plant pathology; plant-microbe biology
  • Research Interests: biology and management of vegetable diseases; host-pathogen interactions

Paul Stodghill

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Plant Pathology: plant pathology; plant-microbe biology
  • Research Interests: Computational methods for analyzing large datasets from high-throughput biological experiments

Bryan Swingle

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Plant Pathology: plant pathology; plant-microbe biology
  • Research Interests: Bacterial phytopathogen biology and functional genomics

Barbara Gillian Turgeon

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Plant Pathology: fungal and oomycete biology; plant-microbe biology
  • Research Interests: genetics and molecular biology of fungal pathogens

Xiaohong Wang

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Plant Pathology: plant pathology; plant-microbe biology
  • Research Interests: molecular basis of plant-nematode interactions; host resistance to the potato cyst nematodes