[About Terrana™]
The definitive RNA company for agriculture
From human health to plant health
Innate genetics meet modern agriculture
All living things have a genetic foundation that speaks the language of nature. Technology has enabled us to read and write this language, driving lifesaving improvements in human health. Terrana has deployed the same approach to build the blueprint for novel, sustainable solutions for plant health.
[our Roots]
Built by the RNA experts
Led by scientists, explorers and company builders, and rooted in Flagship Pioneering’s world-class RNA expertise, Terrana has built a platform technology capable of delivering the speed, scale and flexibility needed to ensure a resilient future for agriculture.


We asked: What if we could use the language of nature to give plants new instructions?
Applying our deep understanding of the biological functions common to species across the plant kingdom, we use the language of nature to provide new instructions to plants. This will equip agricultural crops with new capabilities – from drought tolerance to shorter ripening times and more.
Providing instructions in a plant’s natural language enables effective and adaptable solutions rooted directly in the plant’s physiology, bypassing the limitations of traditional approaches to plant genetics or crop protection.
Our Team
Leadership

Ryan Rapp
Ryan is CEO of Terrana and an Origination Partner at Flagship Pioneering where he leads a team that founds and builds companies in agriculture and sustainability.
Ryan is an experienced leader in Ag-Biotech and has bridged the gap between research and commercial application throughout his career. Before joining Flagship, he served as Chief Technology Officer at Pairwise, responsible for company-wide R&D strategy and execution as the company advanced its research portfolio to deliver biotech charged consumer food products.
Prior to his time at Pairwise, Ryan was Associate Director of Agricultural Genomics at Illumina responsible for R&D direction, product marketing, product management, and market development for the company’s agriculture work. Ryan started his career at Monsanto where he held several roles. Over the course of his tenure, he was responsible for technical assessment of investment opportunities for the biologicals R&D program, driving implementation of a new genetics discovery framework in maize, applying quantitative genetics to advance understanding of the genetic interactions of yield relevant phenotypes, and creating Monsanto’s first high-density genotyping chip.
Ryan has a Ph.D. in Genetics from Iowa State University and a B.S. in Plant Science from Cornell University. He is the author of several published patents and papers.

Matthew Lingard
Matthew is Terrana’s Chief Technology Officer and a Senior Principal at Flagship Pioneering, specializing in advancing agriculture and agbiotech ventures.
Before joining Flagship, Matthew was the Senior Vice President of Agriculture and Science at BrightFarms, Inc. where he spearheaded modernization of their indoor agricultural operations across 6 sites. He also started up R&D and product development operations and led technology prospecting efforts to fully automate BrightFarms’ greenhouses. Prior to BrightFarms, Matthew worked for Bayer Crop Sciences, where he oversaw construction, launch, and operation of a 7-acre automated greenhouse. He also represented Bayer in Southern Arizona's scientific and business communities. Matthew started his career at Monsanto as Genotyping Discovery and Development Lead and Cell Sciences and Imaging Lead.
Matthew has contributed to numerous podcasts, conference panel discussions, public talks, and scientific publications. Matthew has served on the boards of CEA Food Safety Alliance and Oro Valley Innovation Laboratories.
Matthew holds a B.S. in Botany from Weber State University, a Ph.D. in Plant Cell Biology from Arizona State University, and post-doctoral experience in plant genetics at Rice University.

Ramtin Ahmadi
Ramtin joined Terrana Biosciences in 2025 as Vice President, Research & Development Strategy & Operations.
Ramtin is a seasoned executive in Ag-Biotech, agriculture, and technology-driven solutions, with extensive international experience driving transformation, innovation, and sustainable growth in both large multinational corporations and high-growth startups.
Before joining Terrana, he served as Vice President, Enterprise Operations at Pairwise, responsible for driving the company’s strategic agenda and strengthening the organization’s competitive position through the design and implementation of technology strategies. Earlier at Pairwise, he served as the Senior Director, Product Discovery and Development, driving the product development pipeline from ideation to market-ready products, including North America's first CRISPR-edited food in 2023.
Before Pairwise, Ramtin held a number of senior leadership roles at Syngenta, including Head of Global Continuous Nurseries, where he directed a multi-continent network of R&D facilities in support of Corn and Soy product development. He began his career in southern Africa at Illovo Sugar, advancing from Head of Production Agronomy to Business Systems Development, and later served as Department Head of the Baha’i Gardens at the Baha’i World Centre in Israel.
Ramtin holds an MBA from the University of Warwick (UK) and a Master of Science in Agronomy from the University of Kwazulu-Natal (South Africa).

Folashade Sabitu
Folashade (Shade) Sabitu joined Terrana Biosciences in 2025 as the Head of Regulatory Affairs. In this role, she is responsible for enabling the company’s freedom to operate through commercial registrations, product biosafety and regulatory affairs.
Shade has spent the last 17 years ensuring innovative and sustainable agricultural biotech products get into the hands of farmers around the world by working with regulators and other stakeholders to ensure the environmental release and commercialization of these products.
Prior to Terrana, Shade led the Global Registration and Regulatory Affairs team at Pivot Bio where she secured the registration of the first gene-edited, nitrogen-producing microbial inoculants for corn growers in the US, Canada, and Kenya. She also enabled product field testing of these products in several more countries. Before Pivot Bio, she supported another Flagship Pioneering company, Indigo Ag, by obtaining grain licenses, ensuring product biosafety assessments, and obtaining OMRI certifications for several of its microbial products.
She began her career at Corteva Agriscience (formerly DuPout Pioneer) where she developed and validated nutrient composition methodologies for corn and soybean seeds by UPLC and eventually moved into a Regulatory Affairs role to support the commercialization of said seed technologies.
Shade has also been an active participant at various trade associations including BPIA and BIO where she has helped draft tactical risk and science-based policies for genetically engineered microbial products.
She graduated from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County with a Bachelors degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and a Masters in Applied Molecular Biology. She also has an MBA from the University of Delaware Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics.

Boahemaa Adu-Oppong
Boahemaa is Terrana’s Director of Computational Biology and Data Science, responsible for developing and implementing Terrana’s data strategy to fully integrate data science, bioinformatics, and machine learning.
Boahemaa’s professional expertise is in microbial genomics, and she has held roles as a bioinformatic scientist, and Director of Data Science. Before joining Flagship, Boahemaa excelled as the Director of Data Science at Pluton Biosciences for 2 years, where she drove microbial discovery and delivered critical analyses that were instrumental in securing a successful Series A funding round. Her work has resulted in multiple pending patents. She has also worked at Thermo Fisher Scientific where she served as a field bioinformatic scientist training customers and providing custom bioinformatic analysis support for the Ion Torrent and Genexus both next-generation sequencing instruments. Prior to her time at Thermo Fisher Scientific, she worked as a computational microbiologist at Monsanto and transitioned to a Data Scientist at Bayer Crop Science. While there she designed and implemented a metagenomics pipeline enabled in AWS and led the Biotech Data Fluency Program.
Boahemaa’s graduate research explored microbial ecology, studying how community dynamics affect human and plant hosts, including implications for host range and susceptibility to illness. She is also the co-founder of the Show Me The World Project, a non-profit that provides youth from under-resourced communities equitable access to transformative educational experiences at home and abroad. The motivation behind the non-profit was driven by her time as the Director of the Young Scientist Program leading over 100 active volunteer scientists with the mission of bringing experiential learning to disadvantaged K-12 students during her time as a graduate student. She is a past awardee of the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, Gerry and Bob Virgil Ethic of Service, Edward A. Bouchet Fellow, Mellon Mays Fellow, Outstanding Director of YSP and Distinguished Individual Leader from the Arts and Science Graduate School at Washington University in St. Louis.
Boahemaa holds a Ph.D. in Ecology, Evolution and Population Biology from Washington University in St. Louis and a B.S. in Evolution and Ecology from Rice University.

Matthew Willmann
Matthew joined Terrana in 2023 and leads platform development and the North Carolina site.
Matthew is an expert in plant biotechnology with over 30 years of experience in plant science research. He completed postdocs in plant development and RNA biology at the University of Pennsylvania. He then moved to Cornell University, where he directed the Plant Transformation Facility. After 5 years at Cornell, Matthew transitioned to the plant biotechnology industry, first as the Associate Director of Delivery Technology at Pairwise and now at Terrana. Matthew is a member of the editorial boards of The CRISPR Journal and Frontiers in Genome Editing. He is also a member of the Advisory Board for the Alliance for Science.
Matthew received a B.S. in General Plant Science from Cornell University and a Ph.D. in Genetics from Harvard University.

Yumeng Hao
Yumeng joined Terrana Biosciences in 2021, where she plays a pivotal role in supporting the company’s science strategy. With expertise in RNA biology, she has held several key positions at Terrana, including Senior Scientist, Technology Innovation Lead, RNA Team Lead, and currently, Science Strategy Lead.
Prior to Terrana, Yumeng was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Johns Hopkins University, where she pioneered novel methods for RNA structure characterization in living cells. She also taught three undergraduate courses regarding RNA biology and CRISPR technology with the Dean’s Teaching Fellowships. Yumeng earned her Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, focusing on engineering self-assembling RNAs as innovative nanotechnology building blocks for gene therapy. Her graduate research was supported by a prestigious American Heart Association Fellowship.
Yumeng has published extensively in leading scientific journals in the RNA field, been invited to present her work at numerous international conferences and is an inventor on several patents. In addition to her Ph.D., she holds a B.S. in Biological Sciences from China Agricultural University.

Spencer Debenport
Spencer Debenport joined Terrana Biosciences in 2023 to lead the company’s molecular biology and screening initiatives.
Spencer’s background and expertise is in plant pathology and molecular assay development, and he has held roles as a scientist, early-stage R&D team lead, national sequencing applications manager, and molecular core lead. Prior to Terrana, Spencer was the Sequencing Applications Manager at Roche where his team developed new NGS workflows for diagnostics customers. He also worked at Indigo Agriculture where he led the early-stage microbial applications R&D team.
Spencer earned his MS and PhD in Plant Pathology from Ohio State University.

Dale Karlson
Dale Karlson is a plant molecular biologist with more than 25 years of experience spanning both academic and industrial research. He is currently a Principal Scientist and Head of Trait Sciences at Terrana Biosciences, where he focuses on advancing crop trait development using innovative molecular strategies.
After earning his Ph.D., Dale completed postdoctoral training in Japan, investigating molecular mechanisms of plant responses to cold stress. He later led a federally funded research program as a faculty member prior to moving into the biotech sector, where he held scientific leadership roles at Monsanto, Pairwise, and GreenLight Biosciences. His work has supported the development of high-throughput platforms for trait discovery, gene expression modulation, gene editing and precision RNA technologies across multiple crop systems.
In addition to his industry role, Dale is an Adjunct Professor at NC State University, contributing to academic training and research collaboration. He is an inventor on several issued and pending patents and has authored peer-reviewed publications in plant molecular biology and crop improvement.
Founders

Noubar Afeyan
Noubar Afeyan is founder and CEO of Flagship Pioneering. He is also co-founder and Board Chairman of Moderna.
Founded in 2000, Flagship is an enterprise where entrepreneurially-minded scientists invent seemingly unreasonable solutions to challenges facing human health and sustainability. They begin by asking “What if?” and iterate toward the unexpected answers resulting in the creation of first-in-category bioplatform companies with significant impact. Flagship has developed more than 100 scientific ventures resulting in over $100 billion in aggregate value, thousands of patents and patent applications, and more than 50 drugs in clinical development.
During his career as inventor, entrepreneur, and CEO, Noubar has cofounded and helped build over 100 life science and technology startups. Prior to founding Flagship Pioneering, Noubar was the founder and CEO of PerSeptive Biosystems, a leader in bio-instrumentation that grew to $100 million in annual revenues. After PerSeptive’s acquisition by Perkin Elmer/Applera Corporation in 1998, he became senior vice president and chief business officer of Applera, where he initiated and oversaw the creation of Celera Genomics.
In addition to his role at Moderna (NASDAQ: MRNA), the pioneering messenger RNA medicines company, he is also co-founder and Board Chairman of Generate:Biomedicines. Previously, he was a member of the founding team, director, and investor in highly successful ventures including Chemgenics Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Millenium Pharmaceuticals), Color Kinetics (acquired by Philips), Adnexus Therapeutics (acquired by Bristol-Myers Squibb), and Affinnova (acquired by AC Nielsen).
Noubar entered biotechnology during its emergence as an academic field and industry, completing his doctoral work in biochemical engineering at MIT in 1987. He has written numerous scientific publications and is the inventor of over 100 patents. He was a senior lecturer at MIT’s Sloan School of Management from 2000 to 2016, and a lecturer at Harvard Business School until 2020. He teaches and speaks around the world on topics ranging from entrepreneurship, innovation, and economic development to biological engineering, new medicines, and renewable energy.
Noubar’s commitment to improving the human condition through science and business goes hand in hand with social investments and a global humanitarian initiative. Together with his partners, he has launched philanthropic projects including the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative, FAST Foundation, and the UWC Dilijan School. Noubar is a member of the Corporation of MIT (the Institute’s governing body) and a member of the board of trustees for the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
Noubar was born in Beirut to Armenian parents in 1962, did his undergraduate work at McGill University in Montreal, and completed his Ph.D. in biochemical engineering at MIT in 1987. A passionate advocate of the contributions of immigrants to economic and scientific progress, Noubar received the Golden Door Award in 2017 from the International Institute of New England, in honor of his outstanding contributions to American society as a U.S citizen of foreign birth. He was also awarded a Great Immigrant honor from the Carnegie Corporation in 2016, received a Technology Pioneer award from the World Economic Forum in 2012, and was presented with the Ellis Island Medal of Honor in 2008. In 2022, Noubar was elected to the National Academy of Engineering.

Ignacio Martinez
Ignacio joined Flagship Pioneering in early 2013 to lead sustainability venture creation activities. He also focuses on entrepreneurial activities in life sciences more broadly, with a special interest in food, nutrition, and human health.
Ignacio is co-founder and founding CEO of Montai Therapeutics; founding team member and director at Indigo Ag; and the co-founder, founding CEO and Chairman of CIBO Technologies, Inari Agriculture, and Invaio Sciences. Ignacio was also co-founder of Senda Biosciences, which merged with another Flagship-founded company, Laronde, to form Sail Biomedicines. Additionally, he is a member of the board of directors of YourBio Health and previously served on the board of Novomer, which was acquired by Danimer Scientific in 2021.
Prior to joining Flagship, Ignacio was founding member and managing director of Syngenta Ventures, the pioneering corporate venture capital group of agricultural giant Syngenta International, the world’s largest agrochemical business. During his tenure at Syngenta, Ignacio was directly involved in corporate strategy and led multiple venture capital investments in agribusiness, biotechnology, and sustainability companies in Europe, North America, and Latin America. Ignacio served on the Board of Directors of Biognosys AG (Switzerland), Population Genetics (England), BoMill AB (Sweden), and Agrinos AS (Norway) among others. He also played a key role in Syngenta’s external corporate venture capital activities managing Syngenta’s relationship as a limited partner with Life Science Partners (LSP) BioVentures, a $100 million agribusiness fund, and Gilde European Food and Agribusiness, a €90 million fund.
Prior to Syngenta, Ignacio was the founding CFO of Progenika Group, where he oversaw the corporate financial strategy, the launch of new companies and spinoffs and the expansion of the group to the U.S. and Latin American markets before the company was acquired by Grifols (NASDAQ: GFRS), the world’s largest supplier of blood plasma products. Earlier, Ignacio spent several years working for Najeti Ventures Fund, investing in software and biotech companies in Europe.
He holds a B.S. in Economics and Business Administration from Deusto University in Spain, and an International M.B.A. from Instituto de Empresa in Spain and WHU Otto Beisheim School of Management in Germany.

Ryan Rapp
Ryan is CEO of Terrana and an Origination Partner at Flagship Pioneering where he leads a team that founds and builds companies in agriculture and sustainability.
Ryan is an experienced leader in Ag-Biotech and has bridged the gap between research and commercial application throughout his career. Before joining Flagship, he served as Chief Technology Officer at Pairwise, responsible for company-wide R&D strategy and execution as the company advanced its research portfolio to deliver biotech charged consumer food products.
Prior to his time at Pairwise, Ryan was Associate Director of Agricultural Genomics at Illumina responsible for R&D direction, product marketing, product management, and market development for the company’s agriculture work. Ryan started his career at Monsanto where he held several roles. Over the course of his tenure, he was responsible for technical assessment of investment opportunities for the biologicals R&D program, driving implementation of a new genetics discovery framework in maize, applying quantitative genetics to advance understanding of the genetic interactions of yield relevant phenotypes, and creating Monsanto’s first high-density genotyping chip.
Ryan has a Ph.D. in Genetics from Iowa State University and a B.S. in Plant Science from Cornell University. He is the author of several published patents and papers.
Board

Ignacio Martinez
Ignacio joined Flagship Pioneering in early 2013 to lead sustainability venture creation activities. He also focuses on entrepreneurial activities in life sciences more broadly, with a special interest in food, nutrition, and human health.
Ignacio is co-founder and founding CEO of Montai Therapeutics; founding team member and director at Indigo Ag; and the co-founder, founding CEO and Chairman of CIBO Technologies, Inari Agriculture, and Invaio Sciences. Ignacio was also co-founder of Senda Biosciences, which merged with another Flagship-founded company, Laronde, to form Sail Biomedicines. Additionally, he is a member of the board of directors of YourBio Health and previously served on the board of Novomer, which was acquired by Danimer Scientific in 2021.
Prior to joining Flagship, Ignacio was founding member and managing director of Syngenta Ventures, the pioneering corporate venture capital group of agricultural giant Syngenta International, the world’s largest agrochemical business. During his tenure at Syngenta, Ignacio was directly involved in corporate strategy and led multiple venture capital investments in agribusiness, biotechnology, and sustainability companies in Europe, North America, and Latin America. Ignacio served on the Board of Directors of Biognosys AG (Switzerland), Population Genetics (England), BoMill AB (Sweden), and Agrinos AS (Norway) among others. He also played a key role in Syngenta’s external corporate venture capital activities managing Syngenta’s relationship as a limited partner with Life Science Partners (LSP) BioVentures, a $100 million agribusiness fund, and Gilde European Food and Agribusiness, a €90 million fund.
Prior to Syngenta, Ignacio was the founding CFO of Progenika Group, where he oversaw the corporate financial strategy, the launch of new companies and spinoffs and the expansion of the group to the U.S. and Latin American markets before the company was acquired by Grifols (NASDAQ: GFRS), the world’s largest supplier of blood plasma products. Earlier, Ignacio spent several years working for Najeti Ventures Fund, investing in software and biotech companies in Europe.
He holds a B.S. in Economics and Business Administration from Deusto University in Spain, and an International M.B.A. from Instituto de Empresa in Spain and WHU Otto Beisheim School of Management in Germany.

André Andonian
André Andonian is Chair of Asia Pacific and Strategic Advisor at Flagship Pioneering, and currently serves as Chairman of the Board of Invaio Sciences. He has over three decades of experience advising companies around the globe on a broad range of strategic, operational, and organizational topics, with a longstanding presence in the APAC region.
Andonian is Senior Partner Emeritus at McKinsey & Company, where he worked for 34 years, including as Senior Partner, Chairman of Japan, and Managing Partner of Korea. He also led Client Impact & Experience across Asia and was a member of McKinsey’s leadership teams in Asia, Europe, and the United States, advising clients in the high-tech, industrial, automotive & assembly, aerospace, basic materials, biotech, and private equity sectors. He was a long-term member of the firm’s global board and held extensive additional senior leadership roles in support of growth, people, and overall knowledge development. Prior to joining McKinsey, Andonian worked at Masco Corporation in the US and at IBM in Austria, Spain, and the Middle East.
Andonian also serves as an Independent Director of the Board of ADI, Chair of the Board of Cognaize in the US, and NC Chair of AEM Holdings in Singapore. He is a member of the Advisory Board of the Sports & Health Sciences Department of the Technical University of Munich, chairs the Foundation for Armenian Science and Technology, and is a Special Advisor to the American Chamber of Commerce in Korea.
As a Fulbright Scholar, Andonian received an MBA at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, an MA and BA in Social & Economic Sciences as well as a BSc in Engineering, all with highest distinction, from institutions in his hometown of Vienna, Austria.

Amy O’Shea
Amy O’Shea serves as Chief Executive Officer of Invaio Sciences and CEO-Partner at Flagship Pioneering.
Amy has more than two decades of leadership experience across agriculture, health and nutrition, and pharmaceuticals. She previously served as President & Chief Executive Officer of Certis Biologicals, a division of Mitsui & Co. Under her leadership, Certis ramped up product development and manufacturing to serve the fast-growing need for bio-based agriculture products.
Prior to Certis, Amy held multiple leadership positions at FMC Corporation, an agricultural sciences company, including Vice President and Business Director of the Agricultural Solutions Division for North America, Global Director of Marketing, Strategy & Innovation for FMC’s Health & Nutrition Division, and FMC’s Global Director of Sales. Earlier in her career with FMC, Amy served as Country Manager, Latin America.
Amy serves on the Board of Directors of Gensource Potash and INTAG, Integrated Agriculture Systems. Previously, she was a board member of numerous industry associations, including Crop Life America, FFA, and IFAC (International Food Additives Council).
Amy graduated summa cum laude with an MBA from Drexel University and holds a Bachelor of Arts in Classical Civilizations from Boston University.

Hugh Grant
Hugh Grant was Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the former Monsanto Company. He joined Monsanto in 1981 and spent the next 37 years working on three continents in a variety of senior positions. He held the roles of Chairman and CEO from 2003 until his departure in 2018 upon Monsanto’s sale to Bayer. Monsanto and Grant were recognized by numerous groups for innovation, corporate responsibility and business leadership during his tenure.
Grant has been named on Barron’s list of Most Respected CEOs, the Harvard Business Review’s Top 50 Best Performing CEOs, and recognized as “CEO of the Year” by Chief Executive magazine. In 2015, employee reviews also earned Grant an honor on the Top 10 Highest-Rated CEOs list by Glassdoor.com. Grant serves as lead director of PPG Industries, Inc., and recently joined the board of Freeport McMoRan. He is also a former member of Civic Progress in St. Louis, Missouri. In 2011, he was inducted as a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.
Scientific Advisory Board
Steve Jacobsen, Ph.D.
Steve Jacobsen is an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and Professor of Molecular Cell and Developmental Biology at the University of California, Los Angeles. His research interests center on mechanisms of epigenetic inheritance in plants, including the genetics and genomics of DNA methylation, histone methylation, and small RNA driven silencing pathways. The lab also develops tools for gene editing in plants, as well as tools for targeted epigenetics using CRISPR systems. He has published over 230 research articles and reviews. Jacobsen received the Beckman and Searle young investigator awards and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2011 and the American Academy of Sciences in 2016. He is also a cofounder of Inari Agriculture.
Peter Moffett, Ph.D.
Peter Moffett holds a PhD in biochemistry from McGill University and undertook postdoctoral research at the Sainsbury Laboratory (2000-2003) with David C. Baulcombe. Dr. Moffett then accepted a position as assistant scientist at the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research, located at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY (2003-2009). In 2009 he moved his research group to the Biology Department at the University of Sherbrooke, Canada, and has been a tenured full professor since 2012. Professor Moffett’s research focuses on various aspects of the molecular interactions between plants and pathogens, with a focus on viruses and bacteria. The Moffett lab has published on mechanisms by which plants recognize pathogens via NLR proteins, RNA silencing as an anti-viral defense, and how bacteria modify the plant microenvironment for their benefit. Current research projects are supported by grants from the Canadian Foundation for Innovation (CFI), the Canadian National Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), Genome Canada, the Quebec Ministry of agriculture (MAPAQ) and the Quebec Funds for Nature and Technology Research (FRQNT). Dr. Moffett is the scientific director of the FRQNT-funded Strategic Research Network, the Centre SÈVE, a group of 76 plant laboratories across the province of Québec. As he is director of the plant growth and phenotyping platform at the University of Sherbrooke and a co-director of the Eastern Canada Plant Phenotyping Platform.
Roger Innes, Ph.D.
Roger Innes holds the Class of 1954 Professorship in Biology at Indiana University-Bloomington. He received his Ph.D. in Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology at the University of Colorado-Boulder, and completed Post-doctoral research at the University of California-Berkeley where he helped develop Arabidopsis as a model system for studying molecular plant-microbe interactions. He is an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Academy of Microbiology, and is the immediate Past President the International Society of Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions. He also served as President of the North American Arabidopsis Steering Committee (NAASC). His current research focuses on molecular mechanisms underlying the plant immune system and development of novel strategies for engineering disease resistant crops.
Marilyn J. Roossinck, Ph.D.
Marilyn J. Roossinck received a B.A. degree in Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, and in Evolutionary, Populational and Organismal Biology, from the University of Colorado in 1982. She received her Ph.D. in Microbiology and Immunology from the University of Colorado School of Medicine in 1986. She did a postdoc in plant virology at Cornell University and joined the Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation as an assistant professor of Plant Biology in 1991. In 2011, she moved to the Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics, Huck Institute of Life Sciences, at the Pennsylvania State University, as a full Professor, where she taught a course in Virus Ecology. She has published over 100 scientific papers, edited or co-edited twenty books, and written two popular press books on viruses. Her research includes experimental evolution of plant RNA viruses, biodiversity studies of viruses in wild plants, plant and fungal viruses involved in plant adaptation to extreme environments, and the ecology of persistent viruses of plants and fungi. Her research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the US Department of Agriculture and the US Fish and Wildlife Services as well as a number of private and local funding agencies. She currently is a Professor Emerita at Penn State, and serves as an editor for the journal VIrus Evolution, and is a member of the editorial board for the journal Virology.