2012 APS Awards Brochure

The American Phytopathological Society

2012 Awards & Honors Ceremony Sunday, August 5, 2012 Providence, Rhode Island, U.S.A.

APS Early Career Recognition Browning Plant Medicine and Health Travel Award This graduate student travel fund, established by the generous gift from Past President J. Artie Browning and his wife, Arra, was established specifically to assist graduate students majoring in the doctor of plant medicine or the doctor of plant health to attend and participate in a professional meeting or conference appropriate to their interests.

JANE Research Award The John and Ann Niederhauser Endowment (JANE) was created to facilitate international cooperation related to research on and management of plant diseases, with particular emphasis on those caused by Phytophthora spp. To increase the award’s impact, the scope of projects was expanded to include any international program in plant pathology that involves cooperation between a person or institution in the United States and a person or institution outside the United States.

This year’s awarded proposal is for “Reducing Reservoirs of Black Pod Rot (Phytophthora megakarya) through On-farm Composting of Cocoa Pod Husks.”

Tara Wood University of Nebraska-Lincoln

French-Monar Latin American Award The French-Monar Latin American Award was established by Edward R. French and Delia Monar French. The earnings from this endowment provide financial support for plant pathologists from Latin America in a variety of ways. This year’s award provided support for the awardee to attend the APS Caribbean Division Annual Meeting.

Gabriela Romero Estevez University of Puerto Rico

Njukeng Jetro Nkengafac IRAD, Cameroon

Raymond J. Tarleton Student Fellowship Award This fellowship was established by former APS Executive Vice President Raymond J. Tarleton to support graduate students in plant pathology research and to encourage students to further their careers in plant pathology.

Frank L. Howard Undergraduate Fellowship The Frank L. Howard Undergraduate Research Fellowship was established to encourage the involvement of undergraduate students in plant pathology research and to encourage students to pursue advanced degrees and careers in plant pathology.

Ana Ibarra Hartnell College

Patricia Milner USDA-ARS

Cassandra L. Swett University of California-Davis

APS Early Career Recognition 12th I. E. Melhus Graduate Student Symposium Awards

Schroth Faces of the Future Early Career Professionals Symposium Awards

This year’s prestigious symposium features presentations on graduate thesis work highlighting research aimed at providing a better understanding of host plant resistance, resistance breeding, and disease management. The symposium is named in honor of Irving E. Melhus, a renowned teacher and outstanding researcher and pioneer in the field of plant pathology at what was then Iowa State College.

The Schroth Faces of the Future—New Frontiers in Plant Bacteriology Symposium is designed to acknowledge the “up and comers” in plant bacteriology. The awardees have the opportunity to highlight their current work and speculate on the future directions of their discipline.

This symposium was made possible by a generous donation from Milt and Nancy Schroth. Milt Schroth is an internationally known expert on bacterial diseases, systematics, and biocontrol.

Mala Ganiger Louisiana State University

Jonathan M. Jacobs University of Wisconsin

Timothy Miles Michigan State University

Imana Power University of Georgia

APS Public Policy Early Career Internship The goal of the APS Public Policy Early Career Internship is to provide an opportunity for the selected individual to gain hands-on experience in public policy at the national level that relates generally to agricultural science and specifically to matters of interest to APS. By working with the APS Public Policy Board, the intern learns how scientific societies, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), executive branch agencies (e.g., Mehdi Kabbage Texas A&M University USDA, NSF, EPA), and the legislative branch interact in crafting public policy.

Dawn R. Bignell Memorial University

Leonardo De La Fuente Auburn University

Wenbo Ma University of California-Riverside

Lindsay R. Triplett Colorado State Universitya

APS Early Career Recognition Student Travel Awards The APS Foundation is pleased to provide APS Annual Meeting Named Student Travel Awards to the following 31 individuals, selected out of a competitive pool of more than 90 applicants.

Elsie J. and Robert Aycock Student Travel Award Christie V. Almeyda Washington State University

JosĂŠ and Silvia Amador Student Travel Award Ebrahiem M. Babiker Washington State University

Tsune Kosuge Student Travel Award Vasileios Bitas Penn State University

Robert W. Fulton Student Travel Award Darlene Cabanas University of Hawaii

The William Moller Award and The Joseph M. Ogawa Award Luisa F. Castiblanco Michigan State University

Arthur Kelman Student Travel Award Yun Chen Nanjing Agricultural University

The Larry W. Moore Award and The John F. Schafer Award Luisa F. Cruz Auburn University

H. David Thurston Student Travel Award Washington L. Da Silva Louisiana State University

The Myron K. Brakke Award and The Gustaaf A. and Ineke C. M. de Zoeten Award Jill E. Demers Penn State University

Stephen A. Johnston Student Travel Award Amara R. Dunn Cornell University

Malcolm C. Shurtleff Student Travel Award Kathryn Fiedler Virgina Tech

Virology Student Travel Award Ana C. Fulladolsa University of Wisconsin

Janell M. Stevens Johnk Student Travel Award Paul R. Giordano Michigan State University

John F. Fulkerson Student Travel Award Anja Grabke Clemson University

Albert Paulus Student Travel Award Jennifer Carol Himmelstein University of Maryland

J. Artie and Arra Browning Student Travel Award Martha Hincapie University of Florida

Luis Sequeira Student Travel Award Alejandra I. Huerta University of Wisconsin

H. J. Dubin Student Travel Award in honor of the Peace Corps Andrew Jurgens University of Illinois

The Dennis Hall Award and The Eugene E. Saari Award Emma Lookabaugh North Carolina State University

Donald E. Munnecke Student Travel Award Phillip A. Lujan New Mexico State University

John S. Niederhauser Student Travel Award Chakradhar Mattupalli University of Wisconsin

The Harry E. Wheeler Award and Forest Pathology Award Megan McConnell University of Maryland

Roger C. Pearson Student Travel Award Richard Ryan McNally Michigan State University

Malcolm and Catherine Quigley Student Travel Award Roslyn Noar North Carolina State University

The Kenneth and Betty Barker Award and The Stuart D. Lyda Award Krishna D. Puri North Dakota State University

Don E. Mathre Student Travel Award Alamgir Rahman Penn State University

The Eddie Echandi Award and The Richard Gabrielson Award Anna C. Seidl University of Wisconsin

Caribbean Division Student Travel Award Jose Pablo Soto-Arias University of Wisconsin

Kenneth F. Baker and R. James Cook Student Travel Award Carly F. Summers Cornell University

The Zahir Eyal Award and The Efrat GamlielAtinsky Award Belachew Asalf Tadesse Norwegian University of Life Sciences (UMB)

Raymond G. Grogan Student Travel Award Michelle Warr Louisiana State University

APS Awards Ruth Allen Award

Lee M. Hutchins Award

This award recognizes individuals who have made an outstanding, innovative contribution to research that has changed or has the potential to change the direction of research in any field of plant pathology.

This is an award to the author or authors of published research on basic or applied aspects of diseases of perennial fruit plants (tree fruits, tree nuts, small fruits, and grapes, including tropical fruits, but excluding vegetables).

Jeff L. Dangl was born October 13, 1957, in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He received bachelor’s degrees in biological sciences and English (modern literature) and a master’s degree in biological sciences from Stanford University in 1981. He received a Ph.D. degree in genetics/immunology from Stanford Medical School in 1986.

He pursued post-doctoral research as an NSF plant molecular biology fellow at the Max Planck Institute of Plant Breeding in Cologne, Germany. In 1989, he began his own group at the Max Delbrück Laboratory, also in Cologne. In 1995, Dangl moved to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He was named John N. Couch Distinguished Professor in 1999 and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator in 2011. Dangl has been an inspirational figure in the field of plant-microbe interactions. He has made seminal and sustained contributions to the field of molecular plant pathology that led to a coherent definition of the plant immune system and resulted in major conceptual breakthroughs.

William Boright Hewitt and Maybelle Ellen Ball Hewitt Award This award recognizes a scientist within 7 years of the Ph.D. who has made an outstanding, innovative contribution directed toward the control of plant disease.

Peter S. Ojiambo is a native of Kenya. He received a B.S. degree in agriculture with first class honors in 1994 and his M.S. degree in plant pathology in 1997 from the University of Nairobi. He received his Ph.D. degree in plant pathology from the University of Georgia in December 2004. Following a post-doctoral fellowship at IITA Nigeria, he was appointed an assistant professor in the Department of Plant Pathology at North Carolina State University in 2007. Ojiambo has authored more than 25 publications since receiving his doctoral degree. In addition, he served as leader of the cucurbit downy mildew IPM-PIPE, a regional program that developed predictive models and delivered disease management information to cucurbit growers in the eastern United States. In addition, he is active in his department and is section chair for the Annual Meetings Board of APS.

Andrea Ficke

Lisa E. Hoffman

Megan M. Kennelly

Andrea Ficke, Lisa E. Hoffman, and Megan M. Kennelly worked together as a team while Ph.D. students at Cornell University’s New York State Agricultural Experiment Station at Geneva, and they published a series of 13 papers in APS journals between 2001 and 2007. Their work significantly improved management of three destructive diseases of grapevine, powdery mildew, black rot, and downy mildew, with impacts worldwide. There are few disease management programs today that do not incorporate their findings on ontogenic resistance, epidemiology, or disease management. All three were selected to present at I. E. Melhus Graduate Student Symposia. The nominees are well known and respected for this work and its impact upon production agriculture. Currently, Ficke is a cereal pathologist at the Norwegian Institute for Agricultural and Environmental Research, Hoffman is a new product development manager with DuPont Crop Protection, and Kennelly is an associate professor at Kansas State University.

APS Awards Noel T. Keen Award for Research Excellence in Molecular Plant Pathology This award recognizes APS members who have made outstanding contributions and demonstrated sustained excellence and leadership in research that significantly advances the understanding of molecular aspects of host–pathogen interactions, plant pathogens or plant-associated microbes, or molecular biology of disease development or defense mechanisms.

Vitaly Citovsky was born in Moscow, Russia. He received his Ph.D. degree at Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1987 and conducted post-doctoral research at the University of California-Berkeley. Since 1993, he has been a faculty member at SUNY-Stony Brook, where he is currently professor. Citovsky has made numerous seminal contributions to our understanding of plant-pathogen interactions by focusing on nucleic acid transport, using plant viruses and Agrobacterium as models. Citovsky was first to describe how plant viral cell-to-cell movement proteins form transport complexes with nucleic acids.

He also elucidated the export of Agrobacterium bacterial effectors into the plant cell to augment the host cellular functions for T-DNA transfer and how this pathogen subverts rather than suppresses the host defenses. Citovsky has published more than 170 articles in high-caliber journals, maintains a well-funded program, is an enthusiastic mentor, has multiple editorial responsibilities, and is an effective advocate for plant microbe research.

Syngenta Award This award is given by Syngenta to an APS member for an outstanding contribution to teaching, research, or extension in plant pathology.

Rodrigo P. P. Almeida received his B.Sc. and M.S. degrees at the University of São Paulo and his Ph.D. degree in 2002 from the University of California-Berkeley, working under the guidance of Alexander Purcell. After taking a position as an assistant professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa from 2003 to 2005, he moved to the University of California-Berkeley in 2006, receiving tenure in 2011. He is a world leader in the ecology and evolution of insect-borne plant pathogens and has published 56 papers in peer-reviewed journals and five book chapters and reviews. While best known for his extensive work studying the fundamental biology of both the plant-pathogenic bacterium Xylella fastidiosa and its insect vectors, as well as the mechanisms by which X. fastidiosa is transmitted, he has also made important contributions to the understanding of grapevine leafroll– associated viruses and Banana bunchy top virus.

International Service Award This award recognizes outstanding contributions to plant pathology by APS members for countries other than their own.

Lawrence E. Datnoff obtained his B.S. degree from the University of Georgia (1976), M.S. degree from Virginia Tech (1981), and Ph.D. degree from the University of Illinois (1985). Following post-doctoral studies with USDA-ARS, Ft. Detrick, he joined the University of Florida in 1988 and Louisiana State University in 2008. Datnoff is a renowned pioneer in the use of elemental silicon to suppress plant diseases. In the 1990s, Datnoff initiated silicon research programs in Colombia and Brazil with subsequent collaborations with Canada, India, and Japan. Over two decades, he has built cooperative research projects throughout the world, influencing governmental, academic, and private entities; informing regulatory policies and guidelines; and redirecting cropping practices. He conceived and inspired a series of silicon and agriculture world conferences. He has been an invited speaker, visiting professor, and mentor in many countries. He remains actively involved in APS and continues his service to plant pathology, leadership, and encouragement of students worldwide.

Excellence in Extension Award This award recognizes excellence in extension plant pathology.

Gail E. Ruhl was born and raised in Ithaca, New York. She received her B.S. degree in plant sciences in 1977 from Cornell University and her M.S. degree in plant pathology from Purdue University in 1979. During graduate school, she developed an interest in plant diagnostics that led to her appointment in 1979 as the founding director and sole diagnostician of Purdue’s newly formed Plant Disease and Weed Identification Clinic. Since then, Ruhl has diagnosed more than 30,000 plant samples from agronomic crops to landscape ornamentals. Ruhl has also authored or coauthored 56 refereed journal articles, extension fact sheets, book chapters, and poster presentations during her career. Ruhl has provided countless hours of plant pathology training to county Master Gardener’s, 4-H youth, growers, and nursery/landscape professionals in Indiana.

Ruhl is an active participant in APS and the National Plant Diagnostic Network, where she serves on several committees.

APS Awards Excellence in Industry Award

Excellence in Teaching Award

This award recognizes outstanding contributions to plant pathology by APS members whose primary employment involves work outside the university and federal realms either for profit or nonprofit.

This award recognizes excellence in teaching plant pathology.

William Ron Landis has followed the road less traveled over the past 40 years. He found his entrepreneurial spirit after his professional training and chose a different direction than most. He is currently CEO of LANDIS International, Inc., a company that introduced the concept of contract project management into the agricultural chemical realm 30 years ago. LANDIS has developed contract agricultural R&D management from its beginnings in 1982 to today’s computer-assisted management. Prior to cofounding LANDIS, he had 12 years of experience developing his project management skills with FMC Corporation, Merck, and Griffin Corporation. Landis earned his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in plant pathology from Michigan State University and his A.B. degree in botany from Miami University. He has been an active participant in APS throughout his career, serving on and chairing the Private Practice Committee and supporting the society as a sustaining associate and through sponsorship of an APS Student Travel Award.

Excellence in Regulatory Affairs and Crop Security The newly established Excellence in Regulatory Affairs and Crop Security Award recognizes outstanding contributions to regulatory plant pathology, crop security, and trade enhancement efforts by APS members. “Crop” is defined as a non-animal species or variety grown for food, livestock fodder, ornamental, silvicultural, fuel, or any other economic purpose.

Robert P. Kahn received his Ph D. degree in plant pathology (1951) from the University of Illinois-Champaign working under H. W. Anderson and Neil E. Stevens on asparagus rust and its causal agent Puccinia asparagi.

Kahn was a supervisory plant pathologist, U.S. Army, Frederick, MD, (1951–1957); senior staff officer or acting chief, biological and taxonomic support staff, Plant Protection and Quarantine (PPQ), APHIS, Riverdale, MD (1957–1985); and plant quarantine official, East African Community-Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda (1970–1972). He retired in 1985 but continued as a consultant to APHIS, USAID, FAO, CABI, and the World Bank. During his career as a regulatory plant pathologist, he published 99 papers, 30 technical reports, and four books covering PPQ. Kahn’s most notable contributions are establishing a regulatory virus-indexing program and using plant meristem tip or embryo culture in regulatory safeguard recommendations to many foreign governments to upgrade their quarantine procedures.

Since 1978, William “Bill” Bockus has been at the forefront in the teaching mission of the Department of Plant Pathology and College of Agriculture at Kansas State University (KSU). He has taken numerous leadership roles in the development of the philosophy and policies for the teaching curriculum. Bockus is known for his contribution to the online APS Education Center with the plant disease lesson: Take-All Root Rot. He has developed and taught numerous undergraduate and graduate courses at KSU, in addition to graduate seminars in crop protection. Student evaluations of his courses average in the upper 10% of all KSU courses. He teaches the introductory course Principles of Plant Pathology, the “flagship” course for the department. Students praise Bockus’s teaching style, his fostering of a positive student-teacher relationship, and his straightforward and organized approach in providing course content and classroom demonstration. International students acknowledge his “gift” of clarity, organization, and selflessness to ensure that each student understands the material.

APS Awards APS Fellows The society grants this honor to a current APS member in recognition of distinguished contributions to plant pathology or to The American Phytopathological Society.

Yehoshua Anikster is an expert on rusts of small grains and their wild relatives.

He developed techniques to germinate teliospores and manipulate their sexual stages. This, along with access to species’ native lands, enabled him to clarify life cycles and identify new taxa. In the genus Uromyces, he analyzed mitotic divisions following meiosis and established evolutionary links between macro- and microcyclic rust fungi. His work using flow cytometry and sequencing of the ITS region of the ribosomal DNA helped identify Puccinia triticina as the cause of wheat leaf rust globally and find a form of this species in Israel. Anikster also helped discover a 120-kD protein, equivalent to mating types of pycniospores, in the pycnial nectar of 11 rust species. Anikster led projects in Israel and Turkey to find and conserve wild relatives of crop plants, helping preserve existing genetic diversity. He was also the founder of a seed bank at Tel Aviv University’s Institute for Cereal Crops Improvement.

Richard M. Bostock graduated from Rhodes College with a B.S. degree in biology with distinction in 1974. He received his Ph.D. degree in plant pathology from the University of Kentucky in 1981 and joined the Department of Plant Pathology at the University of CaliforniaDavis. He achieved the rank of professor in 1993 and served as department chair from 1999 to 2005. Throughout his career, he has maintained a productive program of research on signaling in plantmicrobe interactions and the role of environmental stress in disease development, along with translational research on the etiology and management of fungal diseases of orchard crops. He has played a central role in the development of the National Plant Diagnostic Network, for which he is currently executive director. He has served as a member and chair of several APS committees and recently chaired a committee charged with developing a Leadership Institute for APS. Bostock is an active and dedicated instructor.

Xianming M. Chen conducts a highly productive research program on stripe rusts of wheat and barley and has made significant contributions to understanding the epidemiology and control of these diseases; the biology, virulence, population structure, evolution, and genomics of the pathogens; and the characterization and mapping of host resistance. Chen established and improved systems for characterizing races of stripe rust pathogens and was one of the first

to apply molecular markers toward analyzing their populations. His program evaluates more than 20,000 wheat and barley germplasm lines for stripe rust resistance every year and has identified more than 70 genes for resistance. His integrated control program has saved growers in the Pacific Northwest more than $100 million every year, and he has made significant contributions to stripe rust control throughout the world. His research has been communicated through 137 peer-reviewed and 86 nonreviewed publications, 94 invited presentations at national and international meetings, and countless talks to growers and other stakeholders.

Bruce B. Clarke was born in Englewood, New Jersey. He received his B.S. degree in forest management in 1977 and his Ph.D. degree in plant pathology in 1982 from Rutgers University. He joined the Rutgers faculty in 1982, where he is now an extension specialist. In 1993, Clarke became director of the Center for Turfgrass Science, a position that he continues to hold. In 2005, he was named the Ralph Geiger Endowed Chair in Turfgrass Science. His research has provided a better understanding of foliar- and root-infecting pathogens of grasses and their control. Clarke coauthored three books for APS PRESS, including two editions of the Compendium of Turfgrass Diseases. His extension program is nationally recognized and he has taken the Rutgers Turfgrass Center to a position of world prominence. Clarke has served APS with distinction as president of the NED-APS, associate editor for Plant Disease, and chair of numerous committees.

Margery L. Daughtrey is well known within the leadership of APS as a tireless and committed volunteer, most recently as editor-in-chief of APS PRESS. She has specialized in the diseases of floral and nursery crops at the Long Island Horticultural Research and Extension Center since joining Cornell University in 1978. Daughtrey is well known among her stakeholders as a gifted extension plant pathologist, diagnostician, and communicator. In preparing this nomination, a recurring question occurred: “What took you so long?” Daughtrey has published 22 refereed journal publications, including two prestigious reviews in Annual Review of Phytopathology, and 14 scholarly book chapters, and she has coauthored four books, including the recent Diseases of Herbaceous Perennials from APS PRESS. She has also published more than 600 technical and popular reports and production guides distributed throughout the United States and Canada. Her impact upon the ornamental industry could be matched by few in her profession.

APS Awards Kenneth B. Johnson received his B.S. degree from the University of Minnesota, his M.S. degree from Oregon State University, and his Ph.D. degree from the University of Minnesota. He joined the faculty of Oregon State University in 1988. The hallmark of Johnson’s career is his ability to address significant questions in plant disease epidemiology while simultaneously developing improved management practices for growers of vegetable and tree crops. His contributions include elucidating the mechanistic basis of yield loss caused by multiple pests, epidemiology and management of introduced pathogens, development and evaluation of the pathogen refuge concept in biological control, meticulous studies of the phyllosphere biology and biological control of fire blight, and development of molecular diagnostics. He teaches a highly successful introductory plant pathology class at Oregon State University and has made numerous contributions to his profession via editorial boards, grant panels, and service on committees.

Deborah A. Samac was born in Colorado Springs, Colorado. She received a B.A. degree from The Colorado College and a Ph.D. degree from the University of Wisconsin. Following post-doctoral work at Monsanto, she joined the USDA-ARS and the Department of Plant Pathology at the University of Minnesota, where she is currently a research plant pathologist and adjunct professor. Samac is internationally recognized in forage pathology and alfalfa biotechnology. She pioneered molecular studies, demonstrating the role of plant chitinases in host-pathogen interactions. Most recently, she used Medicago truncatula as a model for genomics of plant-pathogen interactions. Additionally, her lab developed a transformation protocol for alfalfa to investigate processes ranging from disease resistance to phytoremediation. She currently serves APS as a coeditor of the Compendium of Alfalfa Diseases and Pests, Third Edition. Her professional service at every level is exemplary and her mentoring of students and post-doctoral associates ensures APS of well-trained plant pathologists for years to come.

Ariena H. C. van Bruggen received an M.Sc. degree in plant pathology from Wageningen University, the Netherlands, and a Ph.D. degree from Cornell University.

After a brief post-doc in Ithaca, she became an assistant professor in diseases of vegetable crops at the University of California-Davis and was promoted to associate and full professor. After 13 years, van Bruggen became chair of the Biological Farming Systems Group at Wageningen University. After almost 10 years, she took a position as professor at the Department of Plant Pathology and the Emerging Pathogens Institute at the University of Florida. She received two international awards for her research

on corky root disease of lettuce. She is the author of more than 130 research articles and the coauthor or coeditor of 18 book chapters in the areas of plant pathology, sustainable agriculture, and food safety. She served APS as a member of committees, associate editor, and senior editor of APS PRESS. Guo-Liang Wang received his Ph.D. degree at the International Rice Research Institute and the University of Philippines.

He is currently a professor at Ohio State University. Wang has been a leader in understanding molecular mechanisms of plant defenses through 25 years of research on the rice pathogens, Magnaporthe oryzae and Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae.

His significant contributions include functional analysis of rice resistance genes, elucidation of the function of the ubiquitination-mediated pathway and epigenetic regulation in defense responses, and analysis of rice defense transcriptomes. Resistance genes cloned in his laboratory provide valuable molecular markers that are widely used in rice breeding programs. He has authored more than 100 publications, obtained $6.5 million from various funding agencies, and presented more than 81 invited talks worldwide. He is highly committed to the education of students, visiting scholars, and post-docs. He has served on several APS committees and on editorial boards for three international journals.

APS Distinguished Service Award This award honors APS members who have provided sustained, outstanding leadership to the society while also furthering the science of plant pathology.

Randall C. Rowe received a B.S. degree from Michigan State University (1967) and a Ph.D. degree in plant pathology from Oregon State University (1972).

Following post-doctoral research at North Carolina State University, he joined the Department of Plant Pathology, The Ohio State University, Wooster campus (1974).

There, he fulfilled research, extension, and administrative responsibilities. Since joining APS in 1968, Rowe has provided leadership to many committees and boards. He served on APS Council and in positions for the North Central Division. As APS president (1992–1993), he led the development and implementation of the first strategic plan for the society. As APS treasurer (2006–2012), he worked to ensure long-term financial stability. Rowe held many positions during his 17 years on APS Council. He became an APS fellow in 1995. He believes strongly in the role of APS in professional and leadership development and plans to continue in society service.

APS 2011–2012 Division Awardees The following individuals were recognized throughout the past year at APS Division meetings for their contributions to the science of plant pathology, as well as to APS and in particular to their division.

Caribbean Division April 2012 Frederick L. Wellman Award Lawrence E. Datnoff, Louisiana State University Graduate Student Paper Competition (Oral) First Place Brandon Hassett, Texas A&M University Second Place Margarita R. Marroquín-Guzmán, University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez Third Place Hao Hu, University of Florida Travel Awards Hao Hu, University of Florida Margarita R. Marroquín-Guzmán, University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez

North Central Division June 2011 Distinguished Service Award Berlin Nelson, North Dakota State University Student Oral Competition Awards First Place Kevin Korus, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Second Place Luisa Castiblanco, Michigan State University Third Place Ryan Shelby, University of Illinois Student Poster Awards First Place Justin McMechan, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Second Place Rodrigo Werle, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Third Place Kim Lesniak, Michigan State University Travel Awards Gazala Ameen, North Dakota State University Luisa Castiblanco, Michigan State University

David Hessel, Iowa State University Amber Hoffstetter, The Ohio State University Yuba Kandel, South Dakota State University Caleb Knepper, Michigan State University Scott Koenig, Purdue University Derrick Mayfield, Iowa State University Jaimin Patel, North Dakota State University Oscar Perez-Hernandez, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Cristian Quispe, University of NebraskaLincoln Ryan Shelby, University of Illinois Nathan Stetzel, Purdue University Prabin Tamang, South Dakota State University Guirong Zhang, University of Illinois

Deana Baucom, New Mexico State University Kaityn Bissonnette, University of Idaho Stephanie Heckert, Oregon State University Dipak Sharma-Poudual, Washington State University Stephanie Slinski, University of California-Davis Cassandra Swett, University of California-Davis Lydia Tymon, Washington State University

Potomac Division March 2012 Distinguished Service Award Daniel P. Roberts, USDA-ARS

Northeastern Division October 2011

Graduate Student Research Awards First Place Taylor Jones, Virginia Tech

Award of Merit Bruce Clarke, Rutgers University

Second Place Jessica Cooper, Virginia Tech

Early Career Achievement Award Beth Gugino, The Pennsylvania State University

Student Travel Award Megan McConnell, University of Maryland

Graduate Student Presentation Award Anwar Bin-Umer, Rutgers University

Pacific Division August 2011 Lifetime Achievement Award Dennis Johnson, Washington State University Distinguished Service Award Melodie Putnam, Oregon State University Student Paper Competition Award First Place Jeremiah Dung, Washington State University Second Place Cassandra Swett, University of California-Davis Third Place Stephanie Herkert, Oregon State University Student Travel Awards Renuka Attanayake, Washington State University

Undergraduate Student Poster Award Patrick Di Bello, University of Maryland

Southern Division February 2012 Outstanding Plant Pathologist Award D. Michael Benson, North Carolina State University Graduate Student Paper Competition First Place Felix Francis, Louisiana State University Second Place Jake Fountain, Louisiana State University Third Place Jing Zhou, University of Arkansas Travel Awards Oluseyi Fajolu, University of Tennessee Felix Francis, Louisiana State University Mala Ganiger, Louisiana State University Rattandeep Gill, University of Georgia Heather Young, University of Florida

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