We study fundamental mechanisms that help plants to cope in challenging abiotic environments.

As our planet heats up, global weather patterns have becoming increasingly unpredictable. This has led to a surge in weather events associated with extremes in precipitation and temperature, with negative impacts on plant biodiversity and crop productivity. Understanding the core developmental and physiological programs controlling plant adaptation in stressful environments is key towards generating the next generation of climate-resilient crops.

  • Rashmi Sasidharan (Professor, Plant Stress Resilience)

    We investigate how plants sense, respond to and tolerate abiotic stresses such as flooding, drought and sub-optimal temperatures.

  • Martijn van Zanten, Associate Professor

    Optimal performance under suboptimal conditions; We study the signalling and response mechanisms of how plants cope with temperature cues across the gradient from cold to warmth using natural variation, functional physiology and molecular genetic approaches.

  • Nora Gigli Bisceglia, Assistant Professor

    We are involved in understanding how plant cell walls contribute to the activation of the signaling responses induced by climate change-related threats.

  • Dorota Kawa, Assistant Professor

    We study cell-type-specific stress adaptations in complex environments where plants face multiple abiotic and biotic stresses and, at the same time, engage in beneficial interactions with microbes.

  • Leonardo Jo, Assistant Professor

    My group focuses on using functional genomics and bioinformatics, to study how the environment shapes plant responses. We hope that these studies will further assist in establishing principles for engineering crop stress resilience to address the current needs in agriculture and food security.

  • Julia Bailey-Serres, Professor by Special appointment

    The Bailey-Serres group at UC Riverside performs translational plant biology from gene to field. They seek to harness genetic mechanisms that provide climate change resilience to crops, particularly flooding, drought and nutrient stress resilience.