2016 News Briefs
PublicationsAwards and
Honors Speaking
Invitations Book
Chapters
General News
- In early November, Dr. Xenia Morin was co-chair of the National Research Mentoring Network (NRMN) - CAN "Passport to Success" conference at the Big10 Conference Center in Rosemont, IL. This NIH funded initiative, lead by the University of Chicago, seeks to diversify the biomedical workforce by focusing on post-docs and junior faculty grantsmanship and professional development. Dr. Morin served as lead co-chair for this 2.5 day event and led sessions on networking and grantsmanship. This was the second year she served as co-chair.
- Dr. Albert Ayeni, Dr. Tom Orton and Dr. Jim Simon are featured in a Rutgers Today video on hot pepper breeding.
Growing the Perfect Hot Pepper
New Jersey's diverse population has increased demand for a wide variety of hot peppers. Rutgers researchers are developing peppers for all tastes - from a mild Poblano to the mouth-scorching Trinidad Scorpion. - Zipeng Tian finished 2nd place in the "Turfgrass Breeders Association – Genetics and Molecular Techniques Section - Oral Paper Graduate Student Competition (C-5 Division)" at the Crop Science Society of America annual meeting in Phoenix, AZ. Her paper was entitled "Characterization of an Epichloë festucae Antifungal Protein" with co-authors Ruying Wang, Bruce Clarke, and Faith Belanger.
- Rutgers is leader in designing new varieties of turf grass.
- Dr. Rong Di and her research on transgenic grapes for disease resistance were featured in an article on NovaNext.
- Rutgers Turfgrasses Prized at Baltusrol Golf Club, Host of 98th PGA Championship.
- Dr. Peter Oudemans and his use of drones to detect plant disease were featured on the CBS Evening News.
- Tom Leustek was asked to be a Guest Associate Editor for PLOS Genetics.
- Graduate students Megan Muehlbauer and Robert Pyne along with Dr. Jim Simon were featured in an article highlighting their research with hops and beer flavor.
- Joan Bennett co-chaired, with Li-Jun Ma (U Mass Amherst) a session entitled "Foundations to Frontiers: the Molecular Revolution" at the meeting of the American Society for Microbiology in Boston on June 19, 2016.
- On May 2, 2016 Dr. William Meyer was named the first C. Reed Funk Endowed Faculty Scholar in Plant Biology and Genetics.
- On February 15, 2016 Lena Struwe and George Poinar (Oregon State University) published the newly discovered 15-million year old asterid flower described as Strychnos electri in Nature Plants. It was the first asterid fossil found in neotropical amber. This resulted in news stories in a large number of media worldwide, including Reuters, CNN, BBC, Fox News, Newsweek, Time, UPI, The Guardian, ABC Australia, The New Yorker, New Scientist, Philly.com, Swedish public radio and TV, Rutgers Today, El Mundo, Business Insider, Washington Post, NY Daily News, Christian Science Monitor, etc. and reached such remote areas as Mauritania, Armenia, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, China, Portugal and Russia and many more.
- Lena Struwe and Myla Aronson were awarded a Rutgers Centers for Global Advancement and International Affairs (GAIA Centers) workshop grant titled Formation of a Worldwide Urban Plant Evolution and Education Network, with Co-PIs Lauren Frazee (E&E graduate program), Laura Schneider (Geography) and Wolfram Hoefner (Landscape Architecture. An international symposium is now being planned for September 2016 on this topic.
Publications
- Di, R., Q. Huang, M. Stulberg, L. Zhang and L. Levy. 2016. Detection of plant quarantine pathogen Ralstonia solanacearum r3b2 with portable POCKIT and BLITZ systems. J. Plant Health 1(1):103
- Di, R. Complete genome sequence of pokeweed mosaic virus-New Jersey isolate and its comparison to PkMV-MD and PkMV-PA. Genome Announcements 4(5):e00929-16. doi:10.1128/genomeA.00929-16.
- Favre, A., I. Michalak, C.-H. Chen, J.-C. Wang, J. Pringle, S. Matuszak, H. Sun, E. Liu, Y.-M. Yuan, L. Struwe, & A. N. Muellner-Riehl. 2016. Out-of-Tibet: the spatio-temporal evolution of Gentiana (Gentianaceae). Journal of Biogeography: online
- Frazee, L. J., S. Morris-Marano, J. Blake-Mahmud, & L. Struwe. 2016. Eat your weeds: edible and wild plants in urban environmental education and outreach. Plant Science Bulletin 62(2): 72-84
- Grant, J., L. Struwe, J. Pringle, B. von Hagen, J. Molina, & K. Lepis. 2016. Gentianaceae. Pages 1344-1353. In: Catálogo de plantas y líquenes de Colombia, vol. 1 (R. Bernal, S.R. Gradstein, & M. Celis, eds.), Instituto de Ciencias Naturales, Universidad
- Lee J, Joshi N, Pasini R, Dobson RCJ, Allison J, Leustek T (2016) Inhibition of Arabidopsis growth by the allelopathic compound azetadine 2-carboxylate is due to the low amino acid specificity of cytosolic prolyl- tRNA synthetase. The Plant Journal (accepted June 21, 2016)
- Torlon, J.T., J.R. Heckman, J.E. Simon and C.A. Wyenandt. 2016. Silicon Soil Amendments for Suppressing Powdery Mildew on Pumpkin. Sustainability. 2016, 8, 293; doi:10.3390/su8040293
- Poinar, G., Jr. & L. Struwe. 2016. An asterid flower from neotropical mid-Tertiary amber. Nature Plants. DOI: 10.1038/NPLANTS.2016.5
- Nikitas, J. & L. Struwe. 2016. Brief review of INCI names, botanical nomenclature of cosmetics ingredients. AHPA Report January 2016: 9-10.
Awards and Honors
- Stacy Bonos was selected as a 2016 Crops Science Society of America (CSSA) Fellow Award recipient.
- Tom Leustek was appointed Academic Leadership Program Fellow from Rutgers for the 2016-17 academic year to the Big Ten Academic Alliance.
- Lena Struwe along with Jorge Marcone, Peter Guarnaccia, Jeffrey Lawrence, Laura C. Schneider and Marcy Schwartz were awarded a grant from Rutgers, Center for Cultural Analysis, Interdisciplinary Working Group for the 2016-17 Academic Year, Resilience: places, cultures, and environments in Latin America. (Sep 2016-Sep 2017).
- Lena Struwe was elected as a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London in January 2016.
Speaking Invitations and Conferences
- Joseph Heckman gave a presentation entitled "Natural Processes in Soils and Health as Founding Principles of Organic Agriculture" at the WhatisNatural Conference in Jamesburg, NJ on December 14th.
- Lena Struwe gave a talk entitled "The Herbarium Army at Rutgers - creating opportunities in research, education, and outreach at a university herbarium", in workshop "Demonstrating the value of herbaria to decision-makers" at the Society for Herbarium Curators, Savannah, GA, 4 Aug 2016.
- Blake-Mahmud, J. & L. Struwe. 2016. Late season changes in sex expression in striped maple, Acer pensylvanicum (Sapindaceae). Botany 2016. Savannah, GA, July 30-Aug 3, 2016.
- Mumich, M. M., K. Reeds, & L. Struwe. 2016. Women of the Chrysler Herbarium: Barbara F. Palser and Erica M. Frank. Botany 2016, Savannah, GA, July 30-Aug 3, 2016.
- Ray, J., R. Artigues, J. Azzolini, R. Buczynski, V. Cusimano, R. Fastige, G. Hess, N. Howe, M. King, T. Lin, C. Olivares, R. Rodriguez, A. Sun, & L. Struwe. 2016. The undergraduate Herbarium Army at Rutgers University: Promoting interaction between students and scientific collections in teaching, research, and outreach. Botany 2016, Savannah, GA, July 30-Aug 3, 2016
- Struwe, L., A. Calamia, M. Pitt, & M. L. Nucci. 2016. The love and hate of weeds - an interdisciplinary analysis of opinions in media, metaphors and biological facts. Botany 2016. Savannah, GA, July 30-Aug 3, 2016.
- Struwe, L. & G. Poinar. 2016. Hidden in collections: Strychnos electri, the first asterid fossil found in neotropical amber. Botany 2016. Savannah, GA, July 30-Aug 3, 2016.
- King, M., R. Buzcynski, J. White, & L. Struwe. 2016. It Takes an Army: How a legion of undergraduates is updating the Chrysler Herbarium. Consortium of Northeastern Herbaria meeting, Providence, RI, June 29, 2016
- Lena Struwe gave a talk entitled "Medicinal plants -The good, the bad, and the ugly facts", Morris Arboretum, Philadelphia, PA, 3 April 2016.
- Joan Bennett gave the banquet address to The American Phytopathological Society (Potomac Division ) in Richmond, Virginia entitled: "Malignant mycotoxins, multitudinous molds, and malleable metabolisms" on March 24th, 2016.
- Joan Bennett gave a seminar to the Plant Biology Graduate Program at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts entitled: "A Moldy Memoir: How I Stopped Ignoring the Headspace" on April 17th, 2016
- Joan Bennett presented a talk entitled "Hurricane Katrina, Fungi and Feminism: One Woman's Story" to Bell Labs, Nokia (Murray Hill, New Jersey) on January 28, 2016.