Faculty
Aug. 15, 2024
Alejandro Plastina
Plastina is the Director of the Rural and Farm Finance Policy Analysis Center (RaFF) at the University of Columbia-Missouri. His area of specialization is agricultural production and technology, with an emphasis on farm business and financial management. He has received multiple awards, including the 2023 Iowa State University (ISU) ANR Extension Team Award, the 2023 Outstanding Choices Magazine Article Award from the Agricultural & Applied Economics Association, the 2022 Dean’s Citation for Extraordinary Contributions to the ISU College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, the 2021 Farm Foundation Agricultural Economics Fellowship, the 2021 ISU Office of the President Excellence in…
Aug. 15, 2024
Jim Green
Green is an Associate Professor of Personal Financial Planning in the Division of Applied Social Sciences of the College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources at the University of Missouri – Columbia. He is a native of Florida but comes to the University of Missouri from San Antonio, TX where he spent the nine years as a financial planning and portfolio manager with Morgan Stanley Wealth Management. Additionally, for the three years, he was an Adjunct Professor of Finance at the H-E-B School of Business Administration, University of the Incarnate Word. He earned his undergraduate degree from the U.S. Air…
Aug. 13, 2024
Curtis A. Nutter
Co/post-transcriptional regulation of gene expression by alternative RNA processing is a highly regulated and complex process that exponentially increases the repertoire and dynamic control of gene products. Disrupted RNA processing is implicated in many human diseases, in particular neurological disorders. Alternative RNA processing is regulated by developmental and tissue specific RNA binding proteins (RBPs) which influence core RNA processing machinery. My group will study these regulatory interactions involved in co/post-transcriptional control of neurological development and cell membrane transport/secretion. We will characterize these mechanisms using cutting edge RNA sequencing technology, single-molecule RNA detection, mass-spectroscopy, and CRISPR techniques to address our hypotheses…
Aug. 13, 2024
Prashant D. Sonawane
Plants synthesize a huge repertoire of diverse, lineage-specific Specialized (secondary) metabolites (also known as Natural Products). Although plant specialized metabolites play a central role in defense and stress responses, many of these compounds are also indispensable resources for human nutrition and medicine. In plants, all known specialized metabolites are derived from core/primary metabolites, which are vital for eukaryotic life. Plant derived specialized molecules/natural products have become an integral part of human health (steroid hormones; e.g. progesterone, estrogen), nutrition (e.g. vitamin D supplements, dietary supplements such as Tribulus extracts) and medicine [drugs for treatments ranging from mild inflammation, allergies to chronic…
Aug. 13, 2024
Kate Nelson
Nelson’s research focuses on issues related to the sustainability of communities and agricultural landscapes (SCALEs). Nelson’s team addresses challenges related to climate change adaptation and social equity, with an emphasis on rural and agricultural systems in the U.S. This work includes studies of: the equity of flood mitigation policy implementation, relationships between landscape structure and resilience of crop production, and rural sustainability assessment. Nelson’s research frequently applies large-scale quantitative spatial analysis to interrogate the bounds of relationships and identify scalar influences but also employs mixed methods approaches to ground and contextualize findings. Educational background Ph.D., Vanderbilt University, 2018…
July 31, 2024
Kristin E. Gibson
Kristin Gibson is an Assistant Professor of Conservation and Environmental Education in the School of Natural Resources at the University of Missouri. She holds a Ph.D. and master’s degree from the University of Georgia and a bachelor’s degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Before joining the University of Missouri, she served as a Teaching Assistant for the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, Science, and Research through Fulbright Austria (2018–2019), worked as a Coastal Community Engagement Specialist AmeriCorps Member with the North Carolina Coastal Federation (2017–2018), and held several seasonal positions in natural resources communication and outreach. Educational…
July 31, 2024
Wonjin Jeong
Recent research projects include investigating leisure behavior as resistance in urban greening initiatives, exploring the psychological impacts of neighborhood greenness and park use, and assessing subjective well-being in resident-led vacant lot greening efforts within underserved communities. Educational background Ph.D., Recreation, Sport & Tourism, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign M.S., Sustainability Science, University of Tokyo B.A., Commerce, Waseda University…
July 31, 2024
Qian Liu
Climate factors and extreme weathers require accurate and effective detection, segmentation, and estimation, as well as the in-depth understanding of physical and atmospheric process. The increasing availability of remote sensing images, ground-based observations, and model simulations along with the rapid progress of computing technologies have provided us the unprecedented opportunity to better satisfy the above-mentioned requirements. In my research, beyond the traditional methodology for environmental factors and natural disasters analytics, I pursue high-efficient and automatic approaches by developing a series of AI and spatiotemporal methodologies and frameworks to detect, retrieve, classify and analyze climate factors such as cloud, air pollution,…
July 31, 2024
Seunguk Shin
The dynamics of human-nature relationships and interactions inspire Shin’s research interests. Using social science approaches, he aims to understand what motivates people to participate in pro-environmental behavior, particularly in outdoor recreation and resource management contexts. Shin engages with various natural resource stakeholders including recreationists, landowners, and children to understand how experiential and psychological factors shape their environmental values and behavior. Current research focuses on how human appreciation of nature’s benefits influences the formative process of environmental values. Educational background Ph.D. Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2023…
July 31, 2024
Joseph H. Lynch
Dr. 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…