Archive
Erin Sparks
Erin Sparks has a BS in Biomedical Engineering, a PhD in Cell and Developmental Biology, and Postdoctoral experience in Plant Molecular Biology. Sparks’ research uses interdisciplinary and multi-scale approaches to optimize plant resilience under abiotic and biotic stressors. She was a faculty member at the Delaware Biotechnology Institute and the University of Delaware for 8 years. Sparks joined the University of Missouri as a joint faculty member with the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in 2025.
Marc Libault
Marc Libault is a professor in the Division of Plant Science and Technology and a member of the Interdisciplinary Plant Group (IPG) at Mizzou. He received his PhD degree in 2004 from the University of Paris-Sud in Plant Cellular and Molecular Biology working on the HP1-like protein in Arabidopsis thaliana. In 2005, he joined Dr. Gary Stacey’s laboratory at the University of Missouri-Columbia as a post-doctoral associate to study the symbiotic interaction between the soybean root and the nitrogen-fixing bacteria, Rhizobia. In 2011, as a faculty at the University of Oklahoma, Libault developed a system biology approach on…
Wendy Picking
Wendy Picking is developing prophylactic and therapeutic vaccines to bacterial pathogens that cause enterica and respiratory infections. These vaccines are based on protein antigens and are formulated into a multimeric presentation to begin to mimic the appearance of the bacterial pathogen to the host immune system. Picking was born in Lincoln, KS in north central Kansas. After growing up on the farm, she attended the University of Kansas where she received a BA in biochemistry and PhD in molecular genetics. She completed post-doctoral training at University of Texas in Austin and Washington University in St. Louis studying molecular biology and…
Wes Warren
Wesley Warren is a professor of comparative genomics in Department of Animal Sciences, Department of Surgery, Institute for Data Science and Informatics. Dr. Warren is a recognized leader in the field of comparative genomics with a theme of looking at biology with a molecular lens. His scientific journey started with basic animal physiology and has progressed to single cell transcriptome analysis of a broad spectrum of species. Dr. Warren’s research involves the use of whole genome comparative methods to examine genetic adaptation events within existing or newly discovered model organisms as a means to better understand human…
David Mendoza
David Mendoza holds a PhD in Biochemistry (2005) and in 2006, he obtained a postdoctoral PEW fellowship to study plant molecular biology at UC San Diego. In 2011, Mendoza joined the Division of Plant Sciences at the University of Missouri and the Bond Life Sciences Center as an assistant professor. Shortly after, he received an NSF CAREER award to study plant nutrition. In 2016, Mendoza was promoted to Associate Professor and his research program has been continuously funded by private and federal agencies, totaling $12 million. In 2025, Mendoza was awarded the MU Chancellor’s Award for Outstanding Research and…
Marc Johnson
Marc Johnson is a professor of molecular microbiology and immunology (MMI). The Johnson lab studies viral metagenomics through air and water sampling. A primary focus of the lab is to work with public health to develop tools for monitoring the presence of new and emerging pathogens through wastewater surveillance. Through their wastewater surveillance work, the lab also studies ‘cryptic lineages’, which are evolutionarily advanced viral lineages from individual with very long persistent infections that are detected from wastewater. In addition to wastewater, the lab collects air and wastewater samples from diverse sources to establish a more complete picture of…
Dong Xu
Dong Xu is a Curators’ Distinguished Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the College of Engineering with appointments in Bond LSC and the MU Institute for Data Science and Informatics. He obtained his PhD from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign in 1995 and did two years of postdoctoral work at the US National Cancer Institute. He was a staff scientist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory until 2003. He then joined Mizzou where he served as department chair of Computer Science during 2007-2016 and director of Information Technology Program from 2017-2020. Over…
Jay J. Thelen
Jay J. Thelen, a plant biochemist, works on several research projects that employ large-scale biology to quantitatively study protein and metabolic regulation in model and crop seeds. His research interests include metabolic regulation, seed development, plant biochemistry, and the regulation of de novo fatty acid synthesis. These areas of study have the potential for broad impact on both agriculture and human health. Using cutting-edge mass spectrometry instrumentation, Thelen has conducted research on the factors that affect the composition of seeds to determine why certain nuts and seeds contain higher percentages of oil than others. His lab…
Donald H. Burke-Agüero
Donald H. Burke-Agüero is a professor of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology.