12/14/2010 - Justin Whitehill, PhD candidate in Plant Pathology, was awarded first place in the Entomological Society of America's Graduate Student Oral 10-Minute Paper competition for his presentation, "Methyl jasmonate as a tool to investigate induced responses of ash to the emerald ash borer."
Whitehill competed in the category Plant-Insect Ecosystems: Forest Entomology and Invasive Species Management at the ESA Annual Meeting, Dec. 12-14, in San Diego, Calif. Paper co-authors were Don Cipollini (Wright State, Dayton, Ohio), Jennifer Koch (USDA Forest Service, Delaware, Ohio), Daniel A. Herms (Department of Entomology, Ohio State) and Pierluigi (Enrico) Bonello (Department of Plant Pathology, Ohio State). Bonello is Whitehill's advisor.
Congratulations to Autumn 2010 graduates (above, left to right): Valdir Correa, PhD Horticulture and Crop Science (Richard Pratt, advisor; Valdir also worked with Dr. Peg Redinbaugh); Sawsan Elateek, PhD Plant Pathology (Sally Miller, advisor) and Xiulan Xu (Sally Miller, advisor).
August 2010 - A publication by PhD student Alissa Kriss was featured as a Phytopathology's Editor's Pick > Kriss, Alissa B., Pierce A. Paul and Laurence V. Madden. 2010. Relationship between yearly fluctuations in Fusarium Head Blight intensity and environmental variables: A window-pane analysis. Phytopathology 100(8): 784-797.
Margaret L. Ellis and Jiye Cheng were honored with the 2010 C. C. Allison Award. The award, which includes a plaque and $800 for each recipient, recognizes high achievement in graduate research and service to the department. Ellis' research, under the direction of advisors Anne E. Dorrance and Pierce A. Paul, involves assessment of soybean genotypes for resistance to Pythium spp. She has served as president and vice-president of the Plant Pathology Graduate Students Association at Ohio State. Ellis is pictured above in the left photo with Anne Dorrance (left) and Pierce Paul (right).
Cheng, who is studying with Terry Graham, has developed novel applications for metabolomics and bioinformatics in plant systems. His investigations include metabolome-wide responses of soybean plants to elicitors, effectors and hypersensitive cell death mimics that induce disease resistance in soybean, and the use of induced metabolomics for the discovery new pharmaceutical compounds. Cheng is pictured in the photo, above far right, with advisor Terry Graham.
Left: Carola De La Torre (second from left) at the Winter 2010 commencement ceremony with her family, who traveled from Peru to attend the ceremony. Carola, who studied under the direction of Dennis Lewandowski, graduated with an MS degree. Her MS thesis was titled, Molecular characterization, differential movement and construciton of infectious cDNA colones of an Ohio isolate of Hosta virus X.