Plant Pathology and Plant-Microbe Biology

Field Description

For a more complete description of the Field of Plant Pathology and Plant-Microbe Biology, please go to gradfield.plantpath.cornell.edu/default.html

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. To reflect the diversity of academic interests and activities, the Field is organized into three program areas:

 

• Plant Pathology (including the concentrations Ecological and Environmental Plant Pathology and Plant Disease Epidemiology)
• Plant-Microbe Biology
• Fungal and Oomycete Biology

Faculty and graduate students in plant pathology are located in two locations in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences: the main campus in Ithaca, NY, and the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva, approximately 50 miles (80 km) northwest of Ithaca.

In addition to Plant Pathology and Plant-Microbe Biology, Cornell University offers graduate programs that cover the full spectrum of plant sciences. For more information on graduate studies in related fields of plant sciences, use this link.

Contact Information

Website: https://pppmb.cals.cornell.edu/graduate/programs-study/
Email: plpathology@cornell.edu
Phone: 607 255-9573

334 Plant Science Building
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY  14853

Data and Statistics

• Doctoral Program Statistics

Subject and Degrees

Plant Pathology

• Plant Pathology (M.S.) (Ithaca)
• Plant Pathology (Ph.D.) (Ithaca)

Concentrations by Subject

Agriculture and Life Sciences (Plant Pathology)

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

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

Thomas J Burr

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: Plant Pathology: fungal and oomycete biology; plant pathology
• Research Interests: biology of bacterial diseases of fruits and vegetables

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

Alan Raymond Collmer

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: Plant Pathology: plant pathology; plant-microbe biology
• Research Interests: molecular phytobacteriology and microbial genomics

Kerik D. Cox

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

Stewart Morrison Gray

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: Plant Pathology: plant pathology; plant-microbe biology
• Research Interests: biology of plant virus/insect vector interactions; virus diseases of potato and grain crops; virus disease management and epidemiology

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

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

Daniel F Klessig

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: Plant Pathology: fungal and oomycete biology; plant pathology
• Research Interests: biochemical, molecular and genetic studies of salicylic acid- and nitric acid-mediated signal transduction in disease resistance in tobacco and Arabidopsis

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

Michael Gordon Milgroom

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: Plant Pathology: fungal and oomycete biology
• Research Interests: population biology and evolution of plant pathogens; the integration of population biology and plant disease epidemiology

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

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

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

Wayne Frank Wilcox

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: Plant Pathology: fungal and oomycete biology; plant pathology; plant-microbe biology
• Research Interests: fungal diseases of fruit crops, with emphases on pathogen biology and disease management; grapevine diseases and Phytophthora root and crown rots of various tree and berry crops

Stephen C Winans

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: Plant Pathology: fungal and oomycete biology; plant pathology; plant-microbe biology
• Research Interests: molecular plant-bacteria interactions; host-microbe chemical signaling