Welcome to the Botany Department!

Welcome to the Botany Department at Oklahoma State University. We are a dynamic group devoted to understanding plant biology, from molecules to ecosystems. Our faculty have comprehensive research programs, and regularly publish in top tier journals. We are committed to excellence in teaching, and we provide opportunities for research experiences for our undergraduates. The Graduate Program includes master’s and doctoral degrees. Explore why OSU is the place to study plants!

The Botany Department Office has moved to 301 Physical Sciences. Several faculty have moved their offices and labs over to the 3rd and 4th floors of Physical Sciences. We also have two new classrooms in Physical Science where we will teach Ecology, Field Botany, Taxonomy, and other courses. Botany faculty continue to reside in the basement of Life Science East and the 2nd floor of Life Science West, with a few faculty in the new Henry Bellmon Research Center. The OSU Herbarium continues to be housed in the LSE basement.

 

Winter Trees
Kaitlin Haase
2011 OSUBS Photo Contest
2nd Place

Mark Fishbein, Botany Associate Professor, is currently serving as secretary of the American Society of Plant Taxonomists.  He previously held a Council member position for three years. Linda Watson, Botany Professor and Head, recently finished her year as President of the Society, having served as President-Elect and Treasurer.  ASPT is a national organization of ~1400 members including international colleagues (www.aspt.net).  The Society is organized to promote research and education in the fields of plant taxonomy and systematics.  It publishes a quarterly journal, Systematic Botany, which is ranked in the top 100 journals in biology and medicine; and it publishes the Systematic Botany Monograph series. 

Angela Rein, a PhD candidate with Mark Fishbein was selected to receive a 2013 Botanical Society of America Graduate Student Research Award for $500. This award will support her field work on the systematics and evolution of milkweed vines. Angela also was awarded the W. Hardy Eshbaugh Graduate Student Research Grant from the American Society of Plant Taxonomists. For this award she will receive $1000 to fund her fieldwork in Mexico for summer 2013.

Justin Dee was awarded a $500 Huyck Grant for summer 2013. Justin is a PhD student with Dr. Palmer and will be travelling to Rensselaerville, NY to work with Dr. Susan Beatty to collect some perennial understory plants.

OCAST research grants were awarded to Andrew Doust and Ming Yang. Ming Yang's project title is "Substrates of SCFs in Arabidopsis reproductive tissues.” This investigation aims to better understand the acting mechanisms of different auxinic herbicides and the role of an uncharacterized F-box protein in seed development.

Botany Professor Bill Henley's recent multiple-authored article concerning environmental risk assessment of genetically modified algae: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211926412000549 was highlighted by the journal editors: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211926413000076#

Several Botany faculty, staff, and graduate students attended the first "Bioinformatics of Entangled Genomes" workshop which was held at OSU in August 2012. This advanced supercomputing and bioinformatics workshop was hosted by the Bioinformatics Graduate Certificate Program, the Entangled Genomes program, and iCREST. Mark Fishbein and Andrew Doust, two of our faculty, were among the organizers for this event. Detailed information can be found in the O'Colly article published Sept. 12, 2012. [Word doc] [PDF]

David Meinke, Regents Professor of Botany, was awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation for his project "Role of Chloroplast Gene Expression in Plant Growth and Development."

Channing Richardson, Botany Ph.D. student, and his advisor Mike Palmer were awarded a new research grant from the US Forest Service on "The effects of prescribed burning on epiphtic bryophytes in the Ouachita National Forest of Oklahoma."

Lydia Meador was awarded a NSF Graduate Research Fellowship to be used in her Ph.D. studies at Arizona State University.

News & Announcements

Spring 2013 Botany Seminar Schedule

Fall 2012 Bluestem newsletter

Publication in Science 339: 1207-1210: Schönknecht et al. 'Gene Transfer from Bacteria and Archaea Facilitated Evolution of an Extremophilic Eukaryote' (for details see here).

PLANTS, PEOPLE AND BEYOND, the Annual Library-Botany Lecture Series presents:

The Amoeba in the Room: Why Animals and Plants Don’t Matter Very Much

Dr. Nicholas P. Money

Western Program Director and Professor of Botany
Miami University – Oxford, OH

Friday April 12, 2013 3:30 PM. The Peggy V. Helmerich Browsing Room, Edmond Low Library. Reception and book signing after the talk.

http://www.library.okstate.edu/news/botanical/2013poster.pdf

Angela Rein, received a $500 grant from the Society of Herbarium Curators to conduct fieldwork and specimen based research on milkweed vines.

Angela Rein, a PhD candidate with Mark Fishbein was selected to receive a $5000 Graduate College 2013 Summer Dissertation Fellowship, a fellowship awarded to outstanding doctoral students. This fellowship is in recognition of her progress and accomplishments.

Ben Haack, Botany undergraduate, was awarded his second Wentz Scholarship for Fall 2013 for $4500. He is working with Mark Fishbein on "A putative new species of highland Mexican milkweed in Asclepias (Apocynaceae)."

Josh McLoud, M.S. Botany student was awarded a National Science Foundation, Graduate Research Fellowship.  This is a three year fellowship funded by the NSF, which is in addition to his two year OK-LSAMP fellowship funded by the NSF to the OSU Graduate College.  Josh is working with Dr. Ming Yang, Associate Professor of Botany on the identification and characterization of mutations that suppress the meiotic defect in the Arabidopsis ask1-1 mutant.

Angela Rein, PhD Candidate, was awarded a National Science Foundation, Doctoral Dissertation Improvement grant for $18,941 in support of her research.  Her project is entitled:  Turning Vines Into Trees: A Genome Skimming Approach to the Phylogenetics of New World Milkweed Vines (Matelea, subg. Chthamalia, Apocynaceae).  Angela is a PhD Plant Sciences candidate working with Dr. Mark Fishbein, Associate Professor of Botany.

Nadjeschda Goertz has been selected as Botany's Outstanding Senior.   Nadjeschda has been accepted into the OSU Center for Health Sciences, College of Medicine.  She is looking forward to practicing emergency or internal medicine in rural and underserved communities in Oklahoma. Nadje was born in Germany, lived in California and Pennsylvania, but grew up in Oklahoma.  She is a Stillwater High School graduate.

Lance Swearengin has been named the Speairs Fellow for 2013 and will be working with Mark Fishbein in the OSU Herbarium. Lance is a senior Horticulture major from Midwest City. The Speairs Fellowship was originally funded by the late Richard K. Speairs and continues today through his wife Betty and their foundation.

Lance Swearengin talks about the Bellamy Parks Jansen illustrations at the OSU Library. The Botanical Illustration Collection opened in february of 2009 with a presentation by Bellamy Parks. This presentation introduced the annual series Plants, People and Beyond: An annual lecture hosted by the OSU Department of Botany and the OSU library. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3nfNt8E1PU

Congratulations to Ben Haack, Botany undergraduate, who received the first ever Paul Buck Award from the Oklahoma Native Plant Society for his presentation at the Oklahoma Academy of Science meeting.  He will receive a monetary award of $250.
Ben also won "Best Undergraduate Talk in Botany" at the Oklahoma Academy of Science fall technical meeting.

Kimberly Rogers, Botany undergraduate student, was awarded a Freshman Research Scholarship this year to work with Andrew Doust on her project, "Genetic Control of Shattering in Foxtail Millet."

Alex Hardison, Botany undergraduate, was selected as an
OK-LSAMP research scholar and will be working with Sally Kittrell, a graduate student of Janette Steets. In his project, he will examine the importance of mycorrhizal fungi in the growth of wetland plants.

Congratulations to Lupita Borja, Botany M.S. student, and AJ Harris, Plant Science Ph.D. student, who received research grants from the American Society of Plant Taxonomists!

AJ Harris, Plant Science Ph.D. student, was awarded an EAPSI Fellowship from the National Science Foundation. This 8-week summer program allowed her to travel to China to conduct field and lab work at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou with Prof. Chengxin Fu, Head of the Laboratory of Systematic & Evolutionary Botany and Biodiversity.

Nicole Bryant, Josh McLoud, and Molly Parkhust, graduate students in the Department of Botany, were awarded the Bridge to Doctorate Fellowship from the Oklahoma Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation, which is funded by the National Science Foundation. Nicole continues work on her Botany M.S. degree with David Meinke in the area of plant molecular genetics. Josh entered the Botany M.S. program in Summer 2012 and is working with Ming Yang in the area of cell and molecular biology. Molly is finishing her Botany M.S. degree, before continuing her graduate students in the Plant Science Ph.D. program, working with Janette Steets in the area of plant population genetics.

 

Contact Information

Oklahoma State University, Department of Botany, 301 Physical Science, Stillwater, OK 74078-3013
E-mail: botany@okstate.edu, Telephone: (405) 744-5559, Fax: (405) 744-7074