The University of Missouri Board of Curators has named Ron Mittler, professor of plant science and technology, as a Curators’ Distinguished Professor. A Curators’ Distinguished Professorship is the highest and most prestigious academic rank awarded by the Board of Curators. It is awarded to a select few outstanding scholars with established reputations.

Mittler holds a joint appointment in the Department of Surgery in the MU School of Medicine, and he is also a principal investigator in the Christopher S. Bond Life Sciences Center. His research interests are focused on the role Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) play in the regulation of different biological processes and has been on the cover of various journals, including Plant Physiology, Science Signaling, New Phytologist and Trends in Plant Science. His work was most recently published in Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology, a journal of Nature, showcasing a new way of measuring stress in plants. The project was supported by funders including the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.

He joined Mizzou in 2018, and has received awards for being a highly cited researcher and for teaching. Mittler is part of the editorial board for The Plant Journal, and is a member of the American Society of Plant Biologists. He received his Ph.D. from Rutgers University.