Awais Khan, Associate Professor
PhD, Plant Breeding and Genetics/Plant Pathology
Office:+1 315 787 2446
Email: awais.khan@cornell.edu
Affiliation: Section of Plant Pathology & Plant-Microbe Biology; School of Integrative Plant Science; Cornell University
Research Areas: Disease resistance mechanisms, quantitative genetics, genomics and bioinformatics, rosaceous fruits, apples
Google Scholar; ResearchGate
Graduate Fields: Plant Pathology & Plant-Microbe Biology; Plant Breeding and Genetics
Current Lab Members:
Maura Gallagher
Graduate Student
Plant Breeding and Genetics
Email: mfg64@cornell.edu
Research interest: Genetics of fire blight resistance in apples, plant breeding, plant pathology, and plant genomics
Tabinda Shahid
Graduate Student
Plant Breeding and Genetics
Email: ts893@cornell.edu
Research interest: Genetic and molecular mechanisms underlying root traits and fire blight resistance in apple, plant breeding, plant pathology, and plant genomics
Hana Feulner
Graduate Student
Plant Pathology and Plant-Microbe Biology
Email: hf332@cornell.edu
Research interest: Genetics of apple scab resistance, pathogen genomics, functional validation of candidate genes
Patrick Cho
Graduate Student
Plant Pathology and Plant-Microbe Biology
Email: jhc299@cornell.edu
Research interest: Genetics and pre-breeding of disease resistance in apples
Jean Sabety
Graduate Student
Plant Pathology and Plant-Microbe Biology
Email: js2824@cornell.edu
Research interest: Genetic and molecular mechanisms underlying disease resistance in apple rootstocks.
David Hickok
Graduate Student (Khan lab/Robbins lab)
Plant Breeding and Genetics
Email: dh564@cornell.edu
Research interest: Genetic analysis framework to map disease resistance in germplasm repositories of out-bred perennials
Aafreen Sakina
Postdoctoral Researcher
PhD, Plant Breeding and Genetics
Email: as3646@cornell.edu
Research interest: Plant breeding, pathology, fire blight in apples.
Ricky Tegtmeier
Graduate Student
Plant Breeding and Genetics
Email: rrt48@cornell.edu
Research interest: Genetic resistance/tolerance to fire blight in apples and genetic improvement of disease resistance in apples.
Anze Svara
Postdoctoral Researcher
PhD, Plant Breeding and Genetics/ Plant Pathology
Email: as3297@cornell.edu
Research interest: Disease resistance mechanisms, apples, rosaceous fruits, genetics, and -omics
Della Cobb-Smith
Lab Manager
Email: djc3@cornell.edu
Research Areas: Lab and greenhouse management, tissue culture, disease screening, pathogen isolation and maintenance
Victoria Cheng
Summer Scholar 2024
Research interests: Functional validation of apple scab candidate resistant genes, plant genetics, and breeding.
Past Lab Members:
Ian Mellon
Graduate Student
Plant Breeding and Genetics
Research interest: Population genetics of Venturia inaequalis, and fine-mapping apple scab resistance in apples
Alicia Serrano Gomez
Postdoctoral Researcher
PhD, Plant Breeding and Genetics
Research interest: Plant breeding, pathology, relationship of rootstocks, and root traits and tree health in apples.
Jugpreet Singh
Postdoctoral Researcher
PhD, Plant Breeding and Genetics
Research Areas: Quantitative genetics, genomics and bioinformatics of pathogens and host
Ranjita Thapa
Postdoctoral Researcher
PhD, Plant Breeding and Genetics
Research Areas: Genetics and genomics of disease resistance in apples, use of high-throughput phenotyping and machine learning for identification of different apple diseases
Julliany Silva
Postdoctoral Researcher
PhD, Horticultural Sciences/Plant Molecular and Cellular Biology
Research interest: Genome editing to understand resistance mechanisms of apples to fire blight and apple scab, and translating these findings to improve disease resistance in apples.
Elsa Desnoues
Postdoctoral Researcher
PhD, Agronomical sciences, Integrative biology
Research interest: Genetics of fire blight resistance in apple and prediction of disease incidence and severity by a combined approach of mathematical modeling and quantitative genetics.
Visiting Scientists:
Shahid Iqbal Awan
Postdoctoral Researcher
PhD, Plant Breeding and Genetics
Research interest: Genomics and genetics of apple scab resistance in apples.
David Papp
Miklos Faust scholar
Szent István University (SzIU), Budapest, Hungary
Research interest: Host genetic resistance to apple scab in wild Malus species.
Liqiang Gao
Visiting Scientist
Northwest University, Shaanxi, China
Research interest: Characterization of virulence of apple scab fungus (Venturia inaequalis).
Summer Scholars/Research Assistants:
Hazel Fritz
Summer Scholar 2023
Research interests: Development of disease-resistant pre-breeding lines of apples.
Lauren Ahren
Summer Scholar 2023
Research interests: Genetic mapping of disease resistance in open-pollinated mapping populations.
Aliyah Brewer
Summer Scholar 2022
Research interests: Genetic mapping of fire blight resistance.
Yuxing Niu
Summer Scholar 2022
Research interests: Relationship between root system architecture of apple rootstocks on fire Blight susceptibility.
Sarah Duber
Summer Scholar 2022
Research interests: Effects of rootstocks and grafted scions on root system architecture in apples.
Mathew Bruno
HWS Intern Summer 2021
Research interests: Allele mining for fire blight and apple scab resistant genes/QTLs.
Nicholas Streb
Summer Scholar 2021
Research interests: Coevolution of Venturia Inequalis and Malus, genetic and geographic mapping of apple scab
Hannah Goldberg
Summer Scholar 2020
Research interest: Phenotyping and genetics of leaf morphological traits in apples, genetic resistance/tolerance of apples to fire blight
Angela Chen
Summer Scholar 2019
Research interest: Disease phenotyping and genetics of to fire blight resistance in apples.
Zach Guillian
Summer Scholar 2019
Research interest: Image based disease identification.
Marina Fandaros
Summer Scholar 2017
Research interest: Methods for high throughput resistance phenotyping, characterization of disease progression and early disease detection
Rachel Baschieri
Summer Scholar 2017
Research interest: Pathogen diagnostics, development of LAMP assay for fire blight detection in apple orchards.
Elliot Guerra-Blackmer
Summer Scholar 2017
Research interest: Field detection assay for Erwinia amylovora, and genetics resistance of apples against fungal and bacterial pathogens
David Strickland
Research interest: Race specific and broad-spectrum resistance to Venturia inaequalis, the causal agent of apple scab and population genetics of fungus.
Mason Clark
Technician
Research interest: Lab management and bacterial genomics
Jack Fabrizio
Technician
Research interest: Modulation of apple scions’s response to diseases by rootstocks