Solving real-world problems with innovative and interdisciplinary plant research is exactly what the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences aims to achieve by introducing a new seminar series: "Plants for the People," beginning this Friday, Oct. 24, at 2:30 pm in the Berg Auditorium, Huck Life Sciences building.
This free seminar series, open to the community at-large, will showcase cutting-edge research and diverse perspectives on how plants can shape a healthier, more sustainable future. It will highlight innovative plant science research, foster collaboration among faculty leaders across disciplines, and explore how plants can address local, regional, and global challenges.
PlantWorks and the Plant Innovation Complex - Oct. 24, 2:30 p.m., Berg Auditorium, Huck Life Sciences Building
- Christina Grozinger, director, Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences, and Troy Ott, dean, College of Agricultural Sciences, will share their vision for establishing the Plant Innovation Complex.
Harnessing Plants for Human Nutrition and Health - Oct. 28, 4 p.m., Berg Auditorium, Huck Life Sciences Building
- Joshua Kellogg: "Cool Greens: Botanical Natural Products for Human Health"
- Joshua Lambert: "Cocoa and Chronic Inflammation as a Model for Studying Plants and Health from Soils to Plants to Consumers"
- Eric Burkhart: "Appalachian Ethnobotany and the Search for New Agroforestry Crops"
Sustainable Bioenergy and Biomaterials for People and the Planet - Nov. 4, 4 p.m., HUB-Robeson Center, Room 134
- Charlie Anderson: "Growing the future; working with plans to provide sustainable materials and energy for everyone"
- Benay Gursoy: "Mushrooms can make materials too"
- Stephen Chmely: "Engineered nanointerfaces to enable plant-inspired 3D printing using renewable materials"
Translating AI to Action in the Plant Sciences - Nov. 18, 4 p.m., Berg Auditorium, Huck Life Sciences Building
- Harland Patch: "FloraCount: An app for Rapid Assessment of Pollinator Attractiveness to Annual and Perennial Plants"
- Paul Esker: "Signal to Shield: Advancing Causal AI for Actionable Crop Intelligence"
- Patrick Suthers: "Exploring Compartmentalized Whole Plant Genome-Scale Metabolic Model Reconstructions"
Contact Jill Hamilton at [email protected] with interest in presenting in the spring 2026 series.
