Faculty
James Adair
Professor of Material Science and Engineering
Nanoscale materials and phenomena for biological, optical and structural applications, property manipulation via novel chemical pathways for designer particles and materials, colloid and interfacial chemistry, powder characterization, powder…
Istvan Albert
Associate Professor of Bioinformatics Bioinformatics, large scale biological data analysis, microarrays and sequence analysis. Scientific programming, algorithm development. Database-driven web development.
Paul Bartell
Associate Professor of Avian Biology The regulation of biological clocks in birds at the systems level.
Terrence Bell
Assistant Professor of Phytobiomes Soil and root-associated microbiomes, microbiome assembly, microbiome manipulation, disturbance.
Sheri Berenbaum
Professor of Psychology and Pediatrics Development and neuroendocrine basis of human sex-typed cognition and social behavior.
Ottar Bjornstad
Distinguished Professor of Entomology and Biology; Adjunct Professor in Statistics Population ecology and population dynamics with particular emphasis on mathematical and computational aspects
Mary Ann Bruns
Associate Professor of Soil Microbiology and Biogeochemistry Functional ecology of biogeochemically important microbial populations.
Carolee Bull
Director of the Microbiome Center; Professor of Plant Pathology; Bacterial Systematics Head, Department of Plant Pathology and Environmental Microbiology Bacterial systematics, epidemiology, and population biology of bacterial plant pathogens and biological control agents to develop alternatives to synthetic chemicals for plant disease management
John Carlson
Professor of Molecular Genetics; Director, Schatz Center for Tree Molecular Genetics Genome mapping, including genetic linkage mapping, molecular cytogenetics; studies of genetic diversity in forests.
Justin DiAngelo
Assistant Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Edward Dudley
Professor of Food Science; Director of E. coli Reference Center Mechanisms driving toxin production in Shiga-toxigenic Escherichia coli; use of genome sequencing to track pathogen transmission during foodborne outbreaks
Yasser El-Manzalawy
Assistant Research Professor of Information Sciences and Technology
Gary Felton
Professor and Department Head of Entomology Plant-herbivore interactions. Adaptive responses of herbivores to plant defenses. Herbivore cues recognized by plants with specific focus on biochemical and molecular analysis of salivary secretions.
Erika Ganda
Assistant Professor of Food Animal Microbiomes Developing practical ways to leverage the microbiome to improve food safety and improve food production animals' production efficiency.
David Geiser
Professor of Plant Pathology Molecular evolutionary genetics of pathogenic and toxigenic fungi.
Kevin Hockett
Assistant Professor of Microbial Ecology, Department of Plant Pathology and Environmental Microbiology Biological Control, Biology and Ecology of Plant-Microbe and Plant-Environment Interactions, Microbial Ecology and Population Biology Faculty
Vasant Honavar
Professor and Edward Frymoyer Chair of Information Sciences and Technology Statistical machine learning algorithms for predictive modeling; modeling and inference of biological networks; characterization and prediction of protein-protein, protein-RNA, and protein-DNA interactions.
María del Mar Jiménez Gasco
Associate Professor of Plant Pathology and Environmental Mictobiology
Seogchan Kang
Professor of Plant Pathology & Environmental Microbiology Genetic and cellular mechanisms underpinning plant-fungal interactions with Arabidopsis thaliana and Fusarium oxysporum as a model system. Molecular genetics and comparative genomics of fungal plant pathogens. Bioinformatics.
Vivek Kapur
Associate Director for Strategic Initiatives, Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences; Huck Distinguished Chair in Global Health; Professor of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases The basic mechanisms by which pathogenic microbes successfully infect, colonize, and cause disease in their hosts.
Jasna Kovac
Lester Earl and Veronica Casida Career Development Professor of Food Safety; Assistant Professor of Food Science Integrating epidemiological, microbiological, molecular and omics methods to better understand microbial pathogenic potential, antimicrobial resistance, and epidemiology of foodborne pathogens.
Dajiang Liu
Associate Professor of Public Health Science Developing novel methods to analyze very large scale datasets in order to identify genes that are responsible for disease, understand the disease mechanism, and gain clinical insights.
Hong Ma
Professor of Biology; Huck Distinguished Research Professor of Plant Molecular Biology Plant development under favorable and stressful conditions; phylogeny and evolutionary biology of plant groups containing major crops and ecologically important species.
Siela Maximova
Senior Scientist and Professor of Horticulture Molecular basis of plant-pathogen and plant-endophyte interactions. Biotechnology of tree crops. Development of sustainable energy crops.
Timothy McNellis
Associate Professor of Plant Pathology & Environmental Microbiology Genetics, molecular biology and physiology of plant interactions with phytopathogenic bacteria. Signal transduction events involved in plant disease resistance. Genetic control of plant hypersensitive cell death.
Michael Messina
Department Head and Professor of Ecosystem Science and Management
Tim Miyashiro
Assistant Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology How bacteria adapt to a host environment. The mutualistic symbiosis established between the Hawaiian bobtail squid (Euprymna scolopes) and a bioluminescent bacterium (Vibrio fischeri).
Andrew Patterson
Professor of Molecular Toxicology The Patterson lab is focused on understanding the host-metabolite-microbiome axis
Connie Rogers
Associate Director, Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences; Associate Professor; Broadhurst Career Development Professor for the Study of Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Role of changes in energy balance and related nutritional factors on inflammation, immune regulation, and cancer risk using both animal models and human subjects.
Marilyn Roossinck
Professor of Plant Pathology and Biology Virus-plant interactions, virus evolution and ecology and evolution of disease
Cristina Rosa
Assistant Professor of Plant Pathology & Environmental Microbiology
Plant Virology, interaction of plant viruses with their insects as vectors and with their plant hosts. Virus evolution, exploration of plant viromes, viral co-infections, effect of climate change on viral resistant breaking strains. Use of…
Steven Schiff
Director of the Center for Neural Engineering; Brush Chair Professor of Engineering; Professor of Neurosurgery; Professor of Engineering Science and Mechanics Neural engineering, neurosurgery, epilepsy, Parkinsons Disease, wave mechanics, brain machine interfaces, EEG, electrical fields, and control theory.
Andrew Stephenson
Distinguished Professor of Biology The impact of inbreeding by plants on organic volatile production, herbivory and the establishment and spread of diseases. The effects of disease on the foraging behavior of vectors and their natural enemies.
Moriah Szpara
Associate Professor of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology Neurovirology, genomics of pathogen variation, neuron-virus relationships
Claire Thomas
Associate Professor of Biology and of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Roles of the cytoskeleton at the cell membrane in epithelial cells, including issues of cell polarity and adhesion, cell signaling, and morphogenesis.
Gary Thompson
Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Education, College of Agricultural Sciences; Director, PA Agricultural Experiment Station
