Botany and Plant Pathology - PhD

The Department of Botany and Plant Pathology offers graduate programs leading to the Master of Science, and Doctor of Philosophy degrees in the field of botany and plant pathology. Within this major field, students may elect to specialize in one of the approved areas of concentration: ecology, genetics, genomics and computational biology, molecular and cellular biology, mycology, plant pathology, plant physiology, and systematics.

The selection of an area of concentration is optional. Students may major in botany and plant pathology without selecting an area of concentration. The approved areas of concentration are described below.

• Ecology includes physiological, population, community, ecosystem and global studies in ecology.
• Genetics includes molecular, classical and population studies of the genetics of plants, fungi, and plant-associated microorganisms.
• Genomics and computational biology include the functional, comparative and structural study of plant, fungal, viral and bacterial genomes and the development and application of bioinformatic algorithms and tools used in the analysis of genomic data.
• Molecular and cellular biology include studies of molecular and cellular mechanisms active during plant development, molecular aspects of plant-pathogen interactions, and various aspects of gene regulation, signal transduction, and the cytoskeleton.
• Mycology includes the systematics, ecology, and population genetics of lichenized and nonlichenized fungi.
• Plant pathology includes studies in the areas of bacteriology, nematology, virology, forest pathology, epidemiology of plant diseases, the physiology of parasitism, and the molecular and biochemical basis of plant host-pathogen interactions.
• Plant physiology includes investigations of the regulation of plant growth and development, the molecular and physiological basis of plant-microbe interactions, nitrogen metabolism and the nitrogen cycle, and problems in environmental and stress physiology in plant systems.
• Systematics includes investigations of the taxonomy, phylogeny, and biogeography of plants, fungi, and lichens.