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.
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…
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…
Bing Yang
Bing Yang is the Curators’ Distinguished Professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia and a member and Principal Investigator at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in St. Louis. He received a PhD degree in plant pathology at Kansas State University.
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…
Scott C. Peck
Scott C. Peck’s research investigates how cells recognize and respond to changes in the environment. The primary foci of his lab are how plants and bacterial pathogens recognize each other, and how plant defense responses and plant nutrition interact with each other to yield a proper biological outcome. In addition, the Peck lab has developed a portfolio of proteomics strategies, primarily related to analyzing changes in plasma membrane protein composition.
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…
Walter Gassmann
As Bond LSC’s director, Gassmann works with the Vice Chancellor for Research to develop and implement plans for growth of the MU research enterprise. That includes partnering with academic units to attract research groups to MU and Bond LSC — one of the research centers administered by the Division of Research, Innovation, and Impact (RII). He supervises Bond LSC staff that assist in making all our center’s amazing science possible. He enjoys mentoring junior researchers in his lab, who study the plant innate immune system and the pathogens that attack plants. Gassmann was born in Karachi, Pakistan. He…
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.