Research

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) are beneficial soil fungi that form close symbiotic associations with the majority of land plants where the fungi provide the host plant with mineral nutrients in exchange for products of photosynthesis. My main research interests focus on how climate change, particularly changes in water availability, shape symbiosis and resource usage.

An overarching theme of my research experience has focused on plant resilience to limiting resources. During my PhD work my focus was on iron deficiency, where I initially worked on a group of transcriptional regulators that control the root’s high affinity iron transport system. Due to some surprising twists and turns, my work evolved into how plants adjust chloroplast ultrastructure to mitigate light toxicity and protect photosynthetic capacity when iron levels are inadequate.

My earliest scientific work was to investigate genetic determinants of heavy metal accumulation in seeds, a major point of concern for human health as heavy metals are toxic to both plants and humans and seeds are the primary source of calories in most populations. We performed a screen of Arabidopsis mutants for metal accumulation and identified multiple candidates. We followed up on a cadmium-overaccumulating mutant in the OPT3 gene; further work demonstrated the significant cross-talk between accumulation of toxic metals like cadmium and essential nutrients like iron.