Congratulations and Farewell

The Department of Plant Pathology said farewell and congratulations to Vicki Burnham as she is leaving Plant Pathology for a new position as the Assistant to the Dean in the College of Pharmacy.

Also celebrated was the promotion of Tobin Peever from Assistant Professor to Associate Professor. Congratulations Tobin.

For more photos click here

APS image of the week at APS online.

B. Hellier (1), H.R. Pappu (2), and F. Dugan (1)
(1) USDA-ARS, Western Regional Plant Introduction Station; and (2) Department of Plant Pathology, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99164. Email: hrp@wsu.edu

Host: Onion. Allium vavilovii Popov & Vved
Disease name: Iris yellow spot virus
Pathogen name: Iris yellow spot virus. Genus Tospovirus, Family Bunyaviridae

Iris yellow spot virus (IYSV) is beginning to cause economic losses in both onion seed and bulb crops in Washington State. The virus was confirmed in onion wild relatives being grown in Central Ferry Farm in WA State. Samples were collected in June 2005. Characteristic symptoms include diamond shaped lesions. From left to right: Lesion size increases with age of the infection and the age of the plant at which sampling was done. Individual lesions continue to expand, coalesce and may lead to extensive drying.

APS publication number: IW000049

Spokane Chamber of Commerce's visit to the new Plant Biosciences Building

Several members of the Spokane Chamber of Commerce and other area business leaders were on campus on
October 4, 2005. They visited the new Plant Biosciences Building. Plant Pathology faculty, Hanu Pappu, Tim Paulitz and Tobin Peever gave the visiting delegation a tour of the teaching and research labs, and an overview of various research programs. The visit was organized by WSU Vice Provost for Research, Dr. Jim Petersen.

Pictured Above: ( left to right): Jim Petersen, Vice Provost for Research and
Brian Pitcher, Chancellor, WSU-Spokane
Touring the new Plant Bioscience Building

Plant Pathology has Visitor from Chile

Dr. Marlene Rosales, Research Scientist in the Plant Biotechnology Unit at Instituto de Investigaciones Agropecuarias (INIA)-Santiago,Chile, visited Department of Plant Pathology at Washington State University, Pullman.
She spent one month in Hanu Pappu's lab working on Iris yellow spot virus in onion. She gave a seminar on ongoing research projects at her institute, "Molecular marker assisted breeding, genetic transformation, grape functional genomics and plant virus disease diagnosis at INIA, Santiago, Chile".

R. James Cook Retires

The College of Agricultural, Human, and Natural Resource Sciences honored Dr. R. James Cook on his retirement, August 31, 2005, Lewis Alumni Centre, 4:00 - 6:00 p.m.. Many people attended the celebration, including former WSU President Sam Smith.

To see more photos of the event click here

Plant Pathology has visitor from The University of Queensland

Professor Peter Greshoff, Director of Center for Integrative Legume Research, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia visited with Hanu Pappu in the department on June 15 and 16, 2005.

Professor Greshoff was part of the delegation from the state of Queensland that visited with several faculty in CAHNRS to develop research linkages. Professor Greshoff also met Dr. Rogers and Dr. Tobin Peever during his visit to the department.

Meet your new co- worker

Masato Kawabe recently joined the Department of Plant Pathology, Washington State University as a post-doctoral research associate. Masato is working with Tobin Peever and Weidong Chen on characterizing the interaction between Sclerotinia sclerotiorum and pea.

He received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Plant Pathology from Meiji University, Kawasaki, Japan and his Ph.D. degree in Plant Pathology from the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, Fuchu, Japan. His Ph.D. dissertation entitled "Molecular and Phylogenetic Analyses of Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. lycopersici" was completed under the direction of Tsutomu Arie and Tohru Teraoka.

Welcome Masato!

Hanu Pappu receives the Advisor of Merit Award

Hanu Pappu was one of 3 recipients at Washington State University to receive the Advisor of Merit award. Award recipients were chosen by a committee review of nomination letters, past nominations for the same advisor, and proportion of students advised who submitted nominations.

Award recipients and nominators were the guests of the GPSA at the Graduate and Professional Student Appreciation and Awards Luncheon on Monday, April 18 th , 2005 .

Congratulations Hanu!

Graduate Students Receive Travel Awards

Three of our students are recipients of Graduate School Travel Grants for summer session 2005. There were 72 grant proposals with 38 receiving awards.

Catalina Leger was also one of four students who will receive a Dow Travel Award of $500. The award (and check) will be presented to Catalina at the Awards Banquet on July12th

Our congratulations to Vihanga Pahalawatta, Catalina Leger, and Jessica Gigot!

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Pitured above(left to right): Vihanga Pahalattwa and Jessica Gigot

Pictured above: Catalina Leger

Dr. Jack Rogers to Receive the 2005 Library Excellence Award

WSU Libraries are pleased to announce that Jack Rogers, Professor of Plant Pathology, is this year's winner of the Library Excellence Award. The ceremony was held in Holland Library Room 105 at 2:30 p.m. on Monday, April 25, 2005.

The Library Excellence Award is presented annually, during National Library Week, to a non-library WSU faculty, staff or A/P employee who has shown consistent support for the WSU Libraries.
The Award winner is chosen from nominations submitted by the library faculty, staff and A/P employees. Nominations include a statement highlighting the nominee's efforts in one or more of the following areas: encouraging students to use the Libraries, personal use of the Libraries, personal support of, or contributions to, the Libraries' collections or services, interaction and cooperation with library faculty, and/or service on library-related committees.
The Library Excellence Award plaques are located on the main floor of the Holland/New Library, outside the Interlibrary Loan office.

Click here for a list of recipients.

Cook Receives WSU Lifetime Service Award

R. James Cook, Interim Dean of the College of Agricultural, Human, and Natural Resource Sciences at Washington State University, received the President’s Award for Lifetime Service during the university’s annual Celebrating Excellence Recognition Banquet held Friday (April 1) night at the Beasley Performing Arts Coliseum.

“Dr. Cook’s career has been one of superlatives. He is a member of both the National Academy of Sciences and U.S. Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service Hall of Fame. He is a fellow of the American Association of Advancement of Science, an International Society for Plant Pathology past president, and has authored more than 200 scientific articles,” said WSU President V. Lane Rawlins in presenting the award.

The award recognizes outstanding lifetime service to WSU.

Cook has held the Endowed Chair in Wheat Research at WSU since April 1998. He was a research plant pathologist with the USDA-Agricultural Research Service at Pullman from 1965 through March 1998, conducting research on biological approaches to control root diseases of Pacific Northwest wheat.

He has served as the interim dean of the college since July 2003. A search to choose his successor is now in the final stages.

He earned a bachelor’s and master’s degree from North Dakota State University and a doctorate from the University of California-Berkeley.

COURTESY OF WSU NEWS BUREAU

Dr. Judy Brown receives College Award

Dr. Judy Brown (M.S., Plant Pathology, 1981) received the CAHNRS Women's History Award for Professional and Academic Leadership.
Dr. Brown holds a tenured professorship at the University of Arizona. Besides being one of the most productive researchers in virology today, she is very involved in student advising and mentoring. She has been a strong advocate of training and mentoring young scientists from developing countries, and active in various professional societies at national and international levels. Letters of support described Dr. Brown as someone whose availability, benevolent personality, and constant enthusiasm proves compelling evidence that she truly cares about her students and desires to see them succeed.

Keri Druffel Receives 2005 President's Employee Excellence Award

Keri Druffel was awarded the 2005 President's Employee Excellence Award.
A researcher with WSU for the past 19 years, she currently is research technologist III for the Department of Plant Pathology. Besides generating her own work accomplishments, her high energy and hard work contribute to the success of others—all while she juggles the responsibilities of four children and a family farm.

Five staff members were honored as recipients of the annual President’s Employee Exellence Award. The award criteria focuses on the outstanding contributions made by the employee regarding productivityof the unit; innovativeproblem solving; positive working relations with students, the public and co-workers; and community service.

Congratulations Keri!

For pictures of the Award celebration

Film crew taking video of Keri working in the lab

Guest Speaker Barry Pryor

Barry Pryor, Department of Plant Pathology, University of Arizona visited the Department of Plant Pathology, Washington State University February 28 to March 1. He visited extensively with state and USDA faculty and presented a seminar entitled “Alternaria, Arabidopsis and Asthma: Building models of fungal interaction in plant and animal systems”. The second part of Barry’s visit was spent examining Alternaria species and discussing Alternaria systematics with Tobin Peever and graduate student Marion Andrew.
Dr. Pryor's seminar was supported in part by the WSU Center for Integrated Biotechnology.

For more photos

Plant Pathology has 3 new visiting scientists working with Dr. Xianming Chen, Adjunct Professor, Research Plant Pathologist, USDA-ARS, Wheat Genetics

Below is an individual picture and a breif summary about each visitor.

The visitors studies are under the project of the USDA-ARS US-China Joint Center of Research Excellence for stripe rust research.

Welcome Dr. Tao Wang, Ms Feng Lin and Dr. Meinan Wang.

Pictured aboeve: (left to right): Dr. Tao Wang, Ms Feng Lin,
Dr. Xainming Chen and Dr. Meinan Wang