Donofrio to present fall Distinguished Scientist Lecture

Nicole Donofrio '95

Skidmore's Distinguished Scientist Lecture Series continues this fall with a talk by University of Delaware scholar and Skidmore alumna Nicole Donofrio.

Donofrio, an assistant professor of plant and soil science, will discuss "Know Your Enemy:  A Better Understanding of Rice Diseases Brings Us Closer to a Cure."  Her lecture will begin at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 21, in Emerson Auditorium of Palamountain Hall. Admission is free and open to the public.

Through her research, Donofrio hopes to gain a better understanding of the intricate and sometimes quite complex nature of the interactions between plants and fungal plant pathogens.  Her goal is to learn more about why plants succumb to disease and how certain fungi take advantage of a plant's inner workings to grow and reproduce.

Currently she has two projects under way in her lab at the University of Delaware:  the first focuses on molecular interactions involving Magnaporthe oryzae, a devastating fungal pathogen of rice, barley and other cereal crops. The second examines a fungal-like parasite (Phytophthora phaseoli) that is a close relative of the pathogen that caused the Irish potato famine.  The parasite can, under the proper conditions, destroy a significant amount of a season's lima bean yield.  (Delaware plants more lima beans than any other state in the U.S.)

A 1995 graduate of Skidmore, Donofrio earned a Ph.D. degree in 2002 at Cornell University and completed post-doctoral research at North Carolina State University at Raleigh.  She is a member of the American Phytopathological Society and the author of several articles in scholarly journals.

Donofrio's talk at Skidmore is sponsored by the following: the National Science Foundation's ADVANCE:  Skidmore and Union Network Project, the Office of the Dean of the Faculty, and the Department of Biology.