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.