The Molecular Plant Scientists at Virginia Tech welcome you. We are a group of more than twenty faculty and many more students in seven departments in the Colleges of Agriculture, Science, and Natural Resources. All of us use molecular approaches to understand how plants grow and interact with their environments.
Our Graduate Program in Molecular Plant Sciences allows students interested in pursuing a Ph.D. degree in this discipline to work in a wide variety of research areas ranging from plant genomics to disease resistance, metabolic engineering, bioproduction and bioprocessing, and forest biotechnology.
Degree candidates who enroll in the program will participate in several rotations through laboratories of interest. The program of study will include selections from a range of course offerings, tailored to the background and interests of each student. At the end of the first or second semester of enrollment, a permanent advisor is selected in whose laboratory the dissertation research will be conducted.
The diversity in our programs becomes evident looking at the federal agencies that fund them: National Science Foundation, United States Department of Agriculture, Department of Energy, and National Institute of Health. Moreover, many laboratories are also supported by various Virginia and US grower organizations and industry.
Watch what faculty and students have to say about Molecular Plant Sciences at Virginia Tech:
Our program is now 3 years old and the students who started in the fall of 2005 have since then participated in many national and international conferences and have published a series of papers in top journals. Check back regularly for our students of the month profiles, in which we will feature one student a month with a description of their research projects and their accomplishments.
You can also download a brochure describing our program.
Latham Hall opened its doors to most of the program's faculty in June 2006.