Archive
Susie Dai
Susie Dai, a professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering, earned her PhD in Chemistry with a Biomedical Engineering certificate from Duke University. She completed postdoctoral training at Scripps Research Institute (Florida campus) and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. She also serves as Associate Director and Co-PI of the NSF-funded CURB Engineering Research Center. Prior to joining Mizzou, Dai was a Professor at Texas A&M University and Director of the Synthetic and Systems Biology Innovation Hub. She has also held leadership roles at the State Hygienic Laboratory in Iowa and the Texas State Chemist’s Office.
Joseph Lynch
Joseph Lynch grew up in rural Washington State and received his BS in Biology from Gonzaga University. He then earned his PhD from Washington State University in the Molecular Plant Sciences program, with his graduate research in the lab of Dr. Sanja Roje focusing on the metabolism of flavin cofactors. After completion of his degree, he took a postdoctoral position in Dr. Natalia Dudareva’s lab at Purdue University studying the production and release of phenylpropanoid/benzenoid volatiles in plants. During his postdoc, he helped elucidate a cytosolic pathway for synthesis of the amino acid phenylalanine in plants that operates in parallel…
Paul de Figueiredo
Paul de Figueiredo is a professor in the Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology in the School of Medicine as well as in the Department of Pathobiology and Integrative Biomedical Science in the College of Veterinary Medicine. He is also a principal investigator at the Christopher S. Bond Life Sciences Center. Paul holds degrees from Rice University (BA, Mathematics and Political Science), Stanford (MA, Religious Studies), and Cornell (PhD, Biochemistry, Molecular, and Cell Biology), and completed postdoctoral training at MIT and the University of Washington. He has broad experience and training in molecular biology, cell biology, microbiology, and biochemistry, with…
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…
Lloyd W. Sumner
Lloyd W. Sumner acquired his BSc degree in chemistry with a minor in mathematics in 1989 from Cameron University in Lawton, OK, USA, and a PhD in analytical chemistry focused on mass spectrometry in 1993 from Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, OK, USA. He then joined Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, where he was the Director of the Mass Spectrometry Applications Laboratory and where he later served as the cofounder and Associate Director of the TAMU Laboratory for Biological Mass Spectrometry with Prof. David H Russell. He joined the Noble Foundation in 1999 and rose to the rank…
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…
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…
Gary Stacey
Gary Stacey is Curators’ Distinguished Professor and Professor of Plant Science and Technology at the University of Missouri-Columbia. His research focuses generally on molecular aspects of plant-microbe interactions, including studies of the beneficial legume-rhizobium symbiosis and plant-fungal pathogen interactions. He has also been instrumental in the development of genomic resources for the study of soybean. He has mentored 51 postdoctoral fellows and 36 Ph.D. and 8 M.S. graduate students. Past postdocs have gone on to start independent careers in academia (e.g., Michigan State Univ., Washington State Univ.), industry, as well as winning the 2005 USA…
Donald H. Burke-Agüero
Donald H. Burke-Agüero is a professor of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology.