Faculty & Research Interests

The faculty of the Department of Plant Biology & Pathology consists of over 50 members with research and teaching emphases in areas of Molecular Biology, Biotechn ology, Natural Products, Plant Breeding and Genetic Improvement, Plant Diversity, Plant Management, Plant Pathology and Horticultural Engineering. We also have a strong extension component that seeks to provide service to and impact plant industries locally and globally.

Current Faculty

1. Albert Ayeni -- weed management, sustainable crop production, and international collaborations in Agriculture and Rural Development
2. Jerry Baron -- plant management/plant pathology: horticultural crop pest management
3. Faith Belanger -- plant pathology/molecular biology/biotechnology: turfgrass molecular biology; endophyte interaction, fungal endophyte/grass interaction.
4. Joan W. Bennett -- Fungal Genetics, Mycology, Mycotoxins, Volatile Organic Compounds
5. Stacy Bonos -- Plant breeding and genetic improvement; perennial grasses for turf and biofuel; inheritance of disease resistance and stress tolerance; molecular and traditional breeding approaches
6. Guohong Cai -- Genomics and bioinformatics; viruses in lower eukaryotes
7. Chee-Kok Chin -- plant diversity/natural products/plant breeding and genetic improvement : asparagus improvement; bioactive fatty acids
8. Bruce Clarke -- plant pathology: turfgrass pathology, ectotrophic root infecting fungi
9. Tiemi N. Curry -- Plant tissue culture/biotechnology: plant cell, tissue and organ culture – research development and production ; plant micropropagation, for selected, highly valued Rutgers hybrid breeding programs.
10. Rong Di -- molecular biology/biotechnology: molecular biology, biotechnology, nutraceuticals, biofuel
11. Juan Dong -- plant cell and development/molecular genetics: cell polarity, asymmetric cell division, stomatal development and patterning,
12. Hugo Dooner -- molecular biology/biotechnology: functional genomics; homologous meiot ic recombination analysis in maize
13. Edward Durner -- plant management: applied physiology; statistics; CSA management, student farms, organic food production, Physalis production, statistical analysis
14. Joel Flagler -- people-plant relationships: horticultural therapy, ornamental horticulture
15. Chaim Frenkel -- Post harvest biology/ Cold stress/ Natural products/ Vanilla
16. Andrea Gallavotti -- plant development/molecular biology: maize genetics and functional genomics; plant architecture; meristem development
17. Thomas J. Gianfagna -- postharvest pathology and physiology of fruit and cut flowers; Plant natural products and human health, endophytic fungi, mechanisms of disease resistance
18. Joseph Goffreda -- plant breeding and genetic improvement: peach, nectarine, apple, and apricot breeding
19. Ann B. Gould -- plant pathology: woody and herbaceous ornamental crop pathology
20. Stephen Hart -- plant management: turfgrass and ornamental weed management
21. Joseph Heckman -- plant management: Soil, soil fertility, soil testing, mineral nutrition, plant health, organic farming, organic farming history, compost, traditional food systems 
22. Zane R. Helsel -- Agriculture Energy, Field a nd Forage Crop Production
23. Melvin Henninger -- plant management: plant management: potato and vegetable crop horticulture
24. Bradley I. Hillman -- plant pathology/molecular biology/biotechnology: plant and fungal virology; fungal molecular biology; biocontrol
25. Joshua A. Honig -- plant molecular biology/plant breeding: DNA genotyping, DNA fingerprinting, DNA sequencing, genetic linkage mapping, and marker assisted selection (MAS), turfgrass breeding
26. Bingru Huang -- Turfgrass stress physiology/biochemistry/molecular biology
27. Arati A. Inamdar -- Understanding the mechanisms of human diseases using Drosophila melanogaster: Human stem cell expert: Fungal volatile organic compounds mediated health risks
28. Harry Janes -- plant management: controlled environmental agriculture; plant environmental interaction
29. Gojko Jelenkovic -- molecular biology/biotech nology: transgenic plants; gene isolation; gene characterization
30. H. Rodolfo Juliani -- Plant diversity for nutrition and health. International development and sustainable production of plant-based products (herbs, spices, medicinal, aromatic plants, non-timber forest products, ethnic plant products). Quality (safety and effectiveness), chemistry and biological activity of plant products. Horticulture and plant biotechnology. Undergraduate and graduate research.
31. Donald Kobayashi -- plant bacteriology: biological control; bacterial genomics; bacterial/fungal interactions; biotechnology
32. Norman Lalancette -- plant pathology: tree fruit pathology; epidemiology and plant disease control
33. Eric Lam -- epigenetics; programmed cell death; stress tolerance; renewable biomass; duckweeds; RNA therapeutics
34. Michael Lawton -- Disease Resistance, Fungal and Bacterial Pathogens, Fusarium Head Blight, Toxins, Programmed Cell Death, Physcomitrella patens, Functional Genomics.
35. Thomas Leustek -- metabolic control and engineering of plant metabolism, sulfur assimilation, nutrition, sensing, amino acid biosynthesis and regulation
36. Brad Majek -- plant management: vegetable and fruit weed control
37. Pal Maliga -- molecular biology/biotechnology/ plant breeding and genetic improvement: plastid molecular biology
38. Hilary Mayton -- plant breeding and genetic improvement, switchgrass cultivar development; disease and insect resistance, molecular and traditional breeding
39. David R. Mears -- plant management: controlled environment agriculture; greenhouse systems
40. Paul Meers -- membrane dynamics and intercellular vesicle transport (including membrane fusion; protein-lipid interactions), drug delivery/transfection technologies, nanotechnology, biofilms, spectroscopic assays and imaging
41. William Meyer -- plant breeding and genetic improvement: turfgrass breeding
42. John E. McLaughlin -- plant pathology/molecular biology: Fusarium graminearum/trichothecene resistance and susceptibility, plant pathology using Arabidopsis, biology of ricin toxicity using yeast
43. Thomas Molnar -- plant breeding and genetic improvement: ornamental and edible tree crops with a current focus on large-bracted dogwoods and hazelnuts.
44. James Murphy -- plant and soil management: turfgrass management, best management practices, BMP, low input management, organic management, varieties, cultivars, cultural practices
45. Elwin Orton -- plant breeding and genetic improvement: woody ornamentals: Ilex and Cornus
46. Thomas Orton -- Plant breeding and genetic improvement: vegetable crops; extension in value-added systems development
47. Peter Oudemans -- plant pathology: Blueberry, cranberry, Colletotrichum physalospora coleophoma, GIS, NEWA.
48. Nrupali Patel -- plant pathology: biological control; bacterial/fungal interactions; biotechnology; emerging bacterial diseases, bacterial pathogen detection, plant parasitic nematodes.
49. Alexander Poulev -- natural product chemistry/biotechnology/natural products: isolation and purification; chromatography; mass spectrometry; structural determination
50. Ilya Raskin -- biotechnology/phytochemistry/natural products/dietary supplements/functional foods/plant diversity/pharmacognosy/international development/biodiversity
51. David M. Ribnicky -- natural product chemistry: isolation and purification; phytopharmaceuticals
52. Diana E. Roopchand -- Bioactivity of phytochemicals from foods/botanicals; biotechnology; molecular and cell biology; experimental models of metabolic syndrome
53. John Sacalis -- plant diversity/natural products: cut-flower postharvest physiology; turfgrass endophytes; natural products
54. James E. Simon --plant diversity/natural products/ plant breeding and genetic improvement: new crop development, plant domestication of high value crops, NonTimber Forest Species, sustainable development of indigenous resources
55. Lena Struwe -- Global plant diversity and evolution, biogeography and spatial patterns, historic and contemporary ethnobotany and sustainable bioprospecting of natural products
56. Mariusz Tadych - fungal biology, evolution and diversity; endophytic and epibiotic fungi; fungal-plant interactions; natural products; symbiosis; plant pathology.
57. Nilgun Tumer -- molecular biology/biotechnology/biochemistry: molecular biology; cellular translation; viral infection
58. Nicholi Vorsa -- plant breeding, genetic improvement, fruit quality, polyphenolics, blueberry and cranberry breeding, genetic mapping
59. Dan Ward -- Pomology - cultural practices and crop management for fruit crops
60. James F. White Jr. -- plant pathology; symbiosis; endophytic microbes; nutritional endosymbiotic systems; associative nitrogen fixation
61. Qing-Li Wu -- natural products chemistry and plant medicine
62. George Wulster -- plant management: environmental and chemical modification of crop growth and development
63. C. Andrew Wyenandt -- Phytophthora capsici and anthracnose fruit rot control in bell and other peppers, cucurbit powdery and downy mildew control, fungicide resistance management, fungicide resistance guidelines, basil downy mildew control
64. Ning Zhang -- Fungal ecology, phylogenetics and genomics, and molecular detection of fungal pathogens.
65. Barbara Zilinskas -- molecular biology/biotechnology: molecular biology and physiology of the response of plants to environmental stress; oxidative stress and antioxidant protective mechanisms; genetic modification of turfgrass species