First name,Last name,Preferred title,Overview,Position,Department,Individual
Seth,Murray,Professor,"Dr. Murray's research interests focus on improving the productivity, sustainability (economic and environmental) and quality of agricultural production through scientific research and development; mostly in maize (corn). The approaches used to conduct this research include 1) high-throughput field phenotyping (UAVs/drones, ground vehicles, NIRS), 2) molecular quantitative genetic discovery (including QTL mapping, GWAS), 3) statistical modeling and novel analysis methods (including big data and metanalysis), 4) development of new breeding and genetics approaches (including use of computer simulations), and ultimately 5) applied maize (corn) field breeding (classical and molecular). Primary traits of interest for discovering genetic variation and improving in maize for are yield, southern adaptation, stress (aflatoxin resistance, drought tolerance), plant height, composition (colored grain, high grain antioxidants, low phosphorus), and perennialism. Graduate student training is deeply embedded in all of my research.",Eugene Butler Endowed Chair||Professor,College of Agriculture and Life Sciences||Soil and Crop Sciences,https://scholars.library.tamu.edu/vivo/display/n06b68456
Amir,Ibrahim,Professor,,Professor,Soil and Crop Sciences,https://scholars.library.tamu.edu/vivo/display/n2089199d
Rodante,Tabien,Associate Professor,"My program focuses on the development of conventional inbred rice varieties for Texas producers using the conventional and molecular breeding tools that enhance cultivar release. Higher grainyield both in the main and ratoon crop, improved biotic and abiotic resistance and excellent grain quality are the priority traits for incorporation into the new varieties. Gene discovery for stress tolerance such as disease, herbicide, cold, flooding and drought through mass screening to identify new donors, and gene mapping to locate the gene(s) is a major part of the program.",Associate Professor||Associate Professor,Soil and Crop Sciences||Beaumont Research and Extension Center,https://scholars.library.tamu.edu/vivo/display/n3e90fd03
Jackie,Rudd,Professor,"I am the project leader of the hard winter wheat breeding program for the High Plains and Rolling Plains of Texas. Responsibilities include management of the cultivar development project, graduate student training, and conducting research relevant to wheat genetic improvement. My current research interests are breeding for water use efficiency, introgression of forage and grain yield traits from synthetic hexaploid wheat, high throughput phenotyping for biomass production, marker assisted breeding for biotic and abiotic stress resistance, and enhanced bread-making quality.","Professor||Project Leader, Wheat Breeding Program",Soil and Crop Sciences||Amarillo Research and Extension Center,https://scholars.library.tamu.edu/vivo/display/n48d095ec
Jorge,Da Silva,Professor,"Using cutting-edge technologies in molecular biology and plant genetics, my Sugarcane Breeding program at Texas A&M AgriLife Research has developed energy cane cultivars with high biomass yield, in partnership with Chevron Technologies Venture and BP Biofuels, that can be grown in a wider region of Texas and the United States, specifically designed for use in the production of bio-fuels. This program has also optimized efficient capabilities for scaling up production of feedstock planting stock. In addition, applying Next-Generation DNA sequencing techniques my program has identified and isolated genes controlling stress resistance, such as cold, which could prevent losses to the $3.8 billion US sugar industry and is developing DNA markers to tag important genes controlling cell wall composition and disease resistance.",Professor||Professor,Soil and Crop Sciences||Weslaco Research and Extension Center,https://scholars.library.tamu.edu/vivo/display/n54ad9a43
Mark,Burow,Professor,"Goals of the program are, in collaboration with peanut breeding programs in College Station and Stephenville to
(1) release new cultivars for Texas growers, incorporating:
high yield
improved edible seed quality -early maturity, high oleic oil
resistance to water deficit, heat, and salt stress
resistance to disease and pests, especially leafspot, nematodes, and Sclerotinia blight
(2) Participate in the International Peanut Genome Initiative, and use genomics technology in cultivar
development
(3) Participate in international collaborations with scientists, especially in Ghana and Burkina Faso
through a Peanut and Mycotoxin Innovation Lab/ USAID project",Professor||Professor,Soil and Crop Sciences||Lubbock Research and Extension Center,https://scholars.library.tamu.edu/vivo/display/n57d1bc41
Wenwei,Xu,Professor,,Professor||Professor,Soil and Crop Sciences||Lubbock Research and Extension Center,https://scholars.library.tamu.edu/vivo/display/n6ca3757d
Endang,Septiningsih,Associate Professor,"My current research focus is plant genetics, genomics, and gene editing, with an emphasis on rice and several other crops. This covers various traits, including abiotic and biotic stresses, grain quality, yield and important agronomic traits that are important to Texas and the rest of the world. Different sources of genetic donors, including exotic germplasm will be used to increase the diversity of research material. Local, national and international research collaborations will be pursued to accelerate progress for crop improvement and broaden the research impacts.",Associate Professor,Soil and Crop Sciences,https://scholars.library.tamu.edu/vivo/display/n74b30548
Michael,Thomson,Professor,"My research expertise is in plant molecular breeding with an emphasis on rice genetics and genomics, international agriculture, and developing CRISPR-based gene editing approaches for efficient gene validation and trait development. My primary objective is to apply new genetics discoveries to rice improvement to help Texas producers and rice farmers around the world produce higher yields of superior quality rice in an environmentally sustainable manner. I am also leading the AgriLife Research Crop Genome Editing Lab to optimize high-throughput gene editing across a number of diverse crop species.",Professor,Soil and Crop Sciences,https://scholars.library.tamu.edu/vivo/display/n74c30954
Hongbin,Zhang,Professor,"My research is focused on genomics and systems biology in crop plants, particularly development of genomic and systems biological knowledge and new or advanced technologies for enhanced crop research and breeding. These include re-establishing of the molecular basis and mechanisms of genetics and biology; cloning and characterization of genes and quantitative trait loci (QTLs) controlling traits of agronomic importance; deciphering of the molecular mechanisms of biological phenomena or traits of importance such as quantitative genetics, epigenetics, crop yield, crop quality, heterosis and plant polyploidization; and development of molecular toolkits and associated pipelines for next-generation enhanced crop breeding such as gene-based breeding and crop production such as molecular precision agriculture.",Professor,Soil and Crop Sciences,https://scholars.library.tamu.edu/vivo/display/n8ad1df35
Keerti,Rathore,Professor,"My current research interests are in the genetic improvement of important dicot (cotton and tomato) and monocot (rice and sorghum) crops. Protocols for efficient delivery of genes, optimal expression of transgenes, and rapid recovery of transgenic cotton, rice, and sorghum plants have been established in my laboratory. These procedures are being used to conduct both basic and applied research pertaining to crop improvement. Projects include regeneration from cell & tissue cultures, use of new reporter and selectable marker genes to understand and improve the transformation process, promoter analysis, enhancement of disease resistance in plants, conferring draught tolerance to crop plants, conferring insect resistance to crop plants, improving nutritional quality of seeds, and production of recombinant antibodies and vaccines in plants.",Professor,Soil and Crop Sciences,https://scholars.library.tamu.edu/vivo/display/n9b4a2655
Russell,Jessup,Associate Professor,"My research focuses on conventional, cytogenetic, and genomic strategies towards development of improved perennial grasses as biorefinery platforms for biofuels, turfgrasses, forage, ornamentals, phytoremediators and renewable bio-based products. This includes developing molecular tools to assist marker-assisted breeding programs for value-added traits such as: net primary productivity, carbon sequestration, perenniality, photoperiodism, hybrid sterility, and apomixis. Feedstocks are further selected for resource use efficiency, stress tolerance, and novel seeded-yet-sterile hybrid systems.",Associate Professor,Soil and Crop Sciences,https://scholars.library.tamu.edu/vivo/display/nb4158114
William,Rooney,Professor,"The long-range goal of my sorghum improvement program is to enhance the productivity and profitability of grain, forage and bioenergy sorghum production systems. The sorghum breeding program is used as a mechanism to develop and release sorghum germplasm to meet this goal. In addition to the release of improved sorghum genotypes, research in the program emphasizes the genetic and molecular genetic inheritance of disease resistance, grain quality and agronomic productivity and adaptability. The research provides opportunities for graduate student training in fundamental and applied aspects of plant improvement. Specific research interests include the development of sorghum germplasm for bioenergy (both sweet and biomass), grain and forage Instruct SCSC 642 annually each fall semester.",Professor,Soil and Crop Sciences,https://scholars.library.tamu.edu/vivo/display/nc74bd61f
Sakiko,Okumoto,Associate Professor,"The overall goal of my research is to understand how nitrogen (N), quantitatively the most important nutrient in crops, is managed in plants. Specifically, my research aims at how amino acids, one of the main forms of organic N in plant body, is transported. In order to study such mechanisms in detail, we have developed protein-based, fluorescent sensors that allow us to track amino acids in live cells. We utilize these sensors to discover novel molecular mechanisms that are involved in the regulation of amino acids. We are currently interrogating the processes in which amino acid exporters are involved in, using various genetic resources such as T-DNA insertion mutants and gene editing tools. We are also interested in developing novel sensors for other biologically important molecules.",Associate Professor,Soil and Crop Sciences,https://scholars.library.tamu.edu/vivo/display/nc97dd3d8
Wayne,Smith,Professor and Associate Department Head,"Research duties include development of superior germplasm/cultivars which will enhance the productivity, improve the product quality, and/or decrease production costs associate with cotton production in Texas. Primary research sites in Texas are College Station, Weslaco, Corpus Christi, Thrall, and Chillicothe, as well as colleagues at Lubbock. Primary geographical areas of responsibilities are central and south Texas with secondary goals aimed at all cotton producing areas of Texas and the United States.",Professor and Associate Department Head,Soil and Crop Sciences,https://scholars.library.tamu.edu/vivo/display/ncd375f9a
Shuyu,Liu,Professor,"Genetic and genomic studies of important traits of wheat in the US Great Plains. Traits include drought and heat tolerance, resistance to diseases (leaf, stem and stripe rust, wheat streak mosaic virus), and arthropods (greenbug, Russian wheat aphid, hessian fly, and wheat curl mite) as well as good end-use quality. Both traditional and molecular breeding techniques are used to develop germplasm lines with one or more target traits. Genomic techniques include gene/QTL mapping, molecular marker identification, validation and utilization, high throughput KASP SNP screening, and gene cloning. Gene functional analysis will be used to understand and improve those target traits.
1. Genetic mapping and genomics studies of QTL for yield, yield components under dry and irrigated conditions, and other traits in adapted cultivars; Study drought tolerance through transcriptomics of water stressed wheat plants.
2. Developing germplasm lines with multiple favorable alleles with drought tolerance, insect and wheat streak mosaic virus resistances using high throughput and diagnostic KASP SNP.
3. Cloning of greenbug resistance gene, identification of candidate genes through molecular techniques.",Professor,Soil and Crop Sciences,https://scholars.library.tamu.edu/vivo/display/nd1249c47
Scott,Finlayson,Associate Professor,"The main focus of my research program is investigating the roles of environmental signals as conditioners of plant growth and development, and discovering the mechanisms through which they work. Current research interests include defining the pathways and mechanisms associated with the regulation of branch development by light signals (and other signals), using both crop and model species. I also have a broad interest in how phytohormones participate in the regulation of growth and development and stress responses.",Associate Professor,Soil and Crop Sciences,https://scholars.library.tamu.edu/vivo/display/ne6245565
Craig,Nessler,Professor,,Adjunct Professor||Professor||Faculty Fellow,Center for Health Systems and Design||Soil and Crop Sciences||Horticultural Sciences,https://scholars.library.tamu.edu/vivo/display/nfe5a2ef4
David,Stelly,Professor,"My scientific research, graduate and post-graduate programs employs multi-disciplinary approaches to conduct and study use of naturally occurring germplasm for crop improvement. Elements of the research include wild-species germplasm introgression, chromosome substitution, reproductive and ploidy manipulations, conventional cytogenetics and fluorescence in situ hybridization, genetic analysis, DNA marker and assay (SNP) development, marker assisted selection, reproductive cytology and genetics, and various types of genome mapping, sequencing, and their integration for genome sequencing and assembly. Most of my research aims to enhance the germplasm, knowledge, science and technologies for genetic improvement Upland cotton, e.g., economic yield and sustainability; some, however, is devoted to sorghum and peanut, especially wide hybridization and germplasm utilization.",Professor||Chair,Soil and Crop Sciences||Molecular and Environmental Plant Sciences,https://scholars.library.tamu.edu/vivo/display/nfec36db0