Meet the Team

David Braun, Co-PI

Education: BA, Biology, University of California

PhD, Biology, University of Missouri

Post-doctoral fellow, University of California-Berkeley

Grant role: To characterize genes that function to deliver sugars to roots. In particular, we want to understand which sugar metabolism and transport processes are increased to provision more carbohydrate resources to roots under drought to enable their continued growth and soil exploration.

Felix Fritschi, Co-PI

Education: Ing. HTL, Crop Science, Swiss College of Agriculture, Switzerland

MS, Agronomy, University of Florida

PhD, Plant Biology, University of California-Davis

Grant role: To characterize nodal root growth in response to water deficit stress under field conditions. Coordinate field experiments conducted in the drought simulator and ensure integration of field and model system activities.

Trupti Joshi, Co-PI

Education: Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery, University of Pune

MS, Bioinformatics, University of Tennessee

PhD, Bioinformatics, University of Missouri

Grant role: To enable bioinformatics capabilities for data management, creating informatic data analysis pipelines, managing multi-omics data integration methods, overseeing the grant database, and generating hypotheses and testing informatics techniques.

Mel Oliver, Co-PI

Education: BS, Joint Honors in Applied Biology, Plant Physiology and Biochemistry, North East London Polytechnic

MS, Biochemical Genetics, University of Calgary, Alberta

PhD, Plant Biochemistry, University of Calgary, Alberta

Grant role: To coordinate metabolomic experiments (external and in-house) hormone analyses, perform sequencing of the FR697 genome, assist transcriptomics, and liaise with the bioinformatic integration of data.

Scott Peck, Co-PI

Education: BA, Biology, Lawrence University, Appleton, WI

PhD, Botany and Plant Pathology Department, MSU-DOE Plant

Grant role: To examine changes in the protein composition of the plasma membrane using mass spectrometry to identify proteins that may contribute to improved root growth during low water availability.

Bob Sharp, PI

Education: BS, Biological Sciences, Lancaster University, UK

PhD, Plant Physiology, Lancaster University, UK

Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; University of California, Davis

Grant role: To characterize nodal root growth responses and associated physiological analyses using the split-root model system under controlled environment conditions. Coordinate model system experiments for multi-omics sample collection, and oversee integration of project activities.

Jon Stemmle, Co-PI

Education: BA, Communication and History, Virginia Wesleyan University

MA, Journalism, University of Arizona

Grant role: To lead the effort to communicate activities and findings related to the grant to the public by working with the grant team and leading a group of journalism students to create videos, stories and other materials all using plain language.