Angela Kent, professor of microbial ecology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, is the next speaker for the microbiological sciences fall seminar.
Kent’s presentation “Mining Ancient Genomes for Crops of the Future,” will be held in Van Es Hall room 101 on Friday, Sept. 29, at 3 p.m.
Kent received an undergraduate degree in biology from Grinnell College in 1991, and master’s and doctoral degrees in bacteriology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2000 studying microbial interaction in the plant rhizosphere. Her postdoctoral research focused on ecological drivers shaping aquatic bacteria.
Since joining the UIUC faculty in 2005, Kent’s microbial ecology research program has focused on characterizing and understanding the ecological drivers of microbial populations involved in key transformations in the nitrogen cycle that impact both plant productivity and environmental quality, as well as plant-microbe interactions.
Her collaborative interdisciplinary work displays the tools of molecular biology, biogeochemistry and community ecology to identify microbial functional groups and their activity in natural, engineered and managed ecosystems.
An overarching goal of Kent’s research program is to understand how microbiomes can be improved to manage environmental quality and sustainability. Current work in her lab is focused on how crop genetics affect microbiome-associated phenotypes, and incorporating that into crop-breeding programs.