Current Employer:
Iowa State University
Job Title:
Professor
Home Town:
River Forest, IL
Current Location:
Ames, IA
Short Description of your Graduate School Research:
Replication and gene expression mechanisms of brome mosaic virus, a model RNA virus.
Faculty Advisor:
Timothy C. Hall
CMB Degree Received in:
1984
What and where is your current position?
I’m a professor in the Plant Pathology, Entomology & Microbiology Dept and the Biochemistry, Biophysics & Molecular Biology Dept at Iowa State University, Ames, IA.
Describe your career path from graduate school to your current position.
After obtaining my PhD from UW-Madison in 1984, I became a principle research scientist at CSIRO Division of Plant Industry in Canberra, Australia where I sequenced the genome of barley yellow dwarf virus, a serious pathogen of wheat, barley, oat around the world. It took 3 years to sequence a 5,677 nt genome in those days! And it was the first for any virus in its family. I also sequenced a ribozyme-containing satellite RNA of what is now cereal yellow dwarf virus. In 1988, I moved to the Plant Pathology Dept at Iowa State where I have been ever since. I have done sabbatical or mini-sabbatical research at University of Utah (1997), UC-Berkeley (Jennifer Doudna’s lab, 2005), CNRS-University of Strasbourg (Fulbright Fellow, 2012-2013), and University of Cambridge (2024).
How did your experience with CMB shape your career?
A lot. I got into plant viruses there. I learned rigorous RNA biology methods. Got into the RNA World before it was cool, which really gave me a good head start in the field. I also owe UW-Madison for making me part of the first generation of molecular plant pathologists. Have been working on RNA viruses (of plants, insects, and humans) and RNA structure-function ever since I started my PhD.
What made you decide to pursue a PhD with CMB at UW-Madison?
It was only MB when I started there. Before grad school, I struggled to decide between ecology or molecular biology and I chose the latter because ecology had too much math, and the molecular mechanisms of the cell seemed a bit more interesting. Once I made that decision, UW-Madison had the highest rated molecular biology program that I got into. I also really liked the interdepartmental nature of the program and the lab rotation process to choose a lab. That, and the Terrace at the MU.
What challenges did you face in your graduate degree, or in launching your career?
Getting my PhD at UW-Madison was the hardest thing in my entire career. Just learning the science, nitty-gritty of experimental methods. Having come from a small college I was less experienced than other grad students who had publications from major universities as undergrads. Also, I wasn’t the smartest graduate student. (Advice: surround yourself with people smarter than you are.) Getting a faculty position, my first grants funded, and tenure, various awards from scientific societies all were relatively easy, which means UW-Madison trained me well.
Describe a “day in the life” of your current job.
I am winding down my lab as I near retirement and obtaining funding is much more difficult. I have only two Ph.D. students, but several really smart undergraduates. Unfortunately, now I spend most of my day at my computer, checking email, preparing lectures, grading assignments, doing administrative work, writing papers and grant proposals. Best part is meeting with students to discuss their lab research, and analyzing their data. I teach virology class 3 days/week, which I also enjoy. Last year, as a visiting professor at Cambridge University, I worked at the lab bench developing a model plant virus system in Arabidopsis.
What is your best piece of advice for current graduate students preparing for their careers?
Read the literature voraciously. Always be in paper writing mode as soon as you get data. My previous graduate students who got the most publications were the best writers, not necessarily the best bench scientists (although it usually correlates). Students who didn’t push me to publish, didn’t get as many papers. Don’t expect your professor to write your papers for you!