In this episode, we speak with Yunde Zhao, a Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology at the University of California San Diego. Yunde earned his Bachelors in Biochemistry from East China University of Science and Technology, received a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Michigan, and did his postdoctoral training in plant genetics at the Salk Institute, where he was a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Fellow of the Life Sciences Research Foundation. In January 2022, Yunde started his appointment as the Editor-in-Chief of Plant Physiology, one of the oldest plant journals. We discus ..read more

In this episode, we speak with Jason Williams, Assistant Director of Inclusion and Research Readiness at the DNA Learning Center at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Jason is also lead for CyVerse Education, Outreach, and Training – the U.S. National Cyberinfrastructure for Life Science. Jason received his B.S. in Biology from SUNY Stonybrook in 2004, then worked as a technician in several labs at Cold Spring Harbor, and then transitioned to multiple roles in the DNA Learning Center In 2009. We discuss an article Jason and colleagues recently published in Science, entitled “Achieving STEM diversi ..read more

In this episode, our guest is Olivier Hamant. Olivier is a PI at INRAE in the Plant Reproduction and Development laboratory in Lyon, France. Olivier did his PhD on KNOX homeobox genes in 2003, and then postdocs in Berkeley with Zac Cande and with Jan Traas in Lyon. He took his current position at INRAE in 2012, where he works on the mechanobiology of development. Olivier has received a number of awards in recent years, including Prix Foulon” from the French science academy – 2020. The jumping-off point for our discussion is a commentary that Olivier wrote entitled “Plants Show us the Light”, p ..read more

Taproot S6E1: May I have your attention, please? Searching for causal mutations and for institutional support. In this episode, our guest is Dior Kelley, an assistant professor in the Genetics, Development and Cell Biology department at Iowa State University. Dior received her B.S. in Chemistry from the University of California Santa Cruz in 2000, and her Ph.D. in Plant Biology from the University of California Davis in 2009 before doing an NIH Postdoctoral fellowship with Jeff Long at the Salk Institute and a second postdoc with Mark Estelle. She joined her department as an Adjunct Assistant ..read more

In this episode, our guest is Aman Husbands. Aman is originally from Canada and got his undergraduate degree from the University of Toronto. After completing his PhD at the University of California Riverside, he moved to Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories. In 2018, he moved to The Department of Molecular Genetics at the Ohio State University where he is an Assistant Professor. Aman’s research group focuses on uncovering the properties that allow complex biological processes, like development, to occur reproducibly. Aman shares the story behind a recent publication from his lab entitled “Identifyi ..read more

This week’s podcast is a conversation with Dr. Kevin Cox. Kevin earned his PhD at Texas A&M University before returning to his hometown of St Louis, Missouri to do a postdoc with Blake Meyers at The Donald Danforth Plant Science Center. Kevin has won numerous awards and grants and was recently awarded an HHMI Hanna H. Gray fellowship. We talk about Kevin’s work “TAL effector driven induction of a SWEET gene confers susceptibility to bacterial blight of cotton” by Cox et al. 2017 in Nature Communications. He tells us about the molecular mechanisms of bacterial blight on cotton as well as th ..read more

In this episode, we talk with Dr. Thelma Madzima, Assistant Professor of Cell and Molecular Biology at the University of Washington, Bothell. A native of Zimbabwe, she received her Ph.D. in Plant Molecular and Cellular Biology from the University of Florida and went on to complete a postdoc with Karen McGinnis in the Department of Biological Science at Florida State University. Her research currently focuses on epigenetic regulation of gene expression in plants using maize (Zea mays) as a model organism. We talk with Thelma about her recent publication in G3 “Epigenetic Regulation of ABA-Induc ..read more

This week’s podcast is a conversation with Dr. Adán Colón-Carmona, Professor of Biology at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Adán received his PhD from the University of California, Irvine and he did postdoctoral research at the Salk Institute and at the University of California, Davis. His research currently focuses on plant rhizosphere interactions, abiotic stress response, and cell cycle. We talk with Adán about a recent publication in the Journal of Experimental Botany - “Influence of Arabidopsis thaliana accessions on rhizobacterial communities and natural variation in root exudates ..read more

This week’s Taproot podcast episode is a conversation with Dr. Tanisha Williams A plant researcher, she was inspired this summer by the simultaneous rise of the pandemic and the civil uprising against police brutality to draw Black botanists together for a social media event called #BlackBotanistsWeek. Tanisha is an impressively accomplished early career researcher whose work has ranged from population genomics to the use of herbarium specimens to track climate induced changes in flowering phenology, all with a central thread of preserving plant diversity. She received her PhD from the Univers ..read more

It has been quite a few months since our last episode! We intended to have a new season out by now, but as you might imagine, a few things got in the way. We are, however, back to working on topics and guests for Season 5 so stay tuned for new episodes this Fall! In the meantime, we want to hear from you! Tell us how you're navigating these chaotic and unusual times. Or... if what you're doing can't really be characterized as navigating, tell us about that instead! Let us know how you're trying to work right now, how you're navigating the next step in your career, or how the renewed attention ..read more