Kevin Fedkenheuer is a fifth year PhD student. He earned his BS with a major in Biotechnology and a minor in Chemistry from James Madison University in 2010. At JMU, he worked on the role of beta-amylase proteins in starch degradation with Dr. Jon Monroe. In 2011, he joined the Department of Plant Pathology, Physiology, and Weed Science at Virginia Tech working with Dr. John McDowell. His expertise is in plant-pathogen transcriptomics and in soybean genetic resistance against
Phytophthora sojae.
Michael Fedkenheuer is a third-year PhD student. He earned his BS with a major in biotechnology and a minor in chemistry from James Madison University (JMU) in 2010; there, he worked on the development of a Dengue virus vaccine with Amanda Biesecker. In 2011, he joined the Department of Biochemistry at Virginia Tech with Pablo Sobrado; he studied the structural biology of flavin-containing monooxygenases. In 2012, he graduated with a master’s degree in biochemistry and joined the Department of Plant Pathology, Physiology, and Weed Science at Virginia Tech, working with John McDowell. Michael’s expertise is in structural biology, x-ray crystallography, and wild soybean resistance against
Phytophthora sojae.
John McDowell is a professor in the Department of Plant Pathology, Physiology, and Weed Science at Virginia Tech. He received his PhD in 1995 from the University of Georgia under the guidance of Rich Meagher; his dissertation was on the structure, expression, and evolution of actin genes in
Arabidopsis. He then entered the molecular plant–microbe interactions field through postdoctoral research in Jeff Dangl’s lab at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; there, he studied the structure, evolution, and signaling of disease resistance (R) genes in
Arabidopsis, with emphasis on genes against the oomycete pathogen
Hyaloperonospora arabidopsidis (downy mildew). In 2000, Dr. McDowell started his own group at Virginia Tech to continue investigating plant–oomycete interactions. His group explores the mechanisms through which plant cells succumb to manipulation by oomycete pathogens.
