-Magdalen Lindeberg

SIPS is excited to welcome Clare Casteel, Associate Professor in the Plant Pathology and Plant-Microbe Biology Section. Clare was the successful candidate for the plant-microbe biology faculty search conducted in 2018, delivering a research seminar on the topic of “Investigating how vector-borne pathogens modulate plant defense”.

Clare is currently a faculty member in the Department of Plant Pathology at UC-Davis. Her research program focuses on the role of individual viral proteins in plant-aphid interactions, mechanisms of plant resistance that occur during insect transmission, and how viral proteins produce host plant phenotypes. Prior to her appointment at UC-Davis in 2014, Clare earned her PhD in Plant Biology at the University of Illinois and worked as a postdoctoral associate with Georg Jander at the Boyce Thompson Institute. She has a strong track record of publication and grantsmanship including an NSF Early Career Award (2018-2023) as well as funds from USDA-NIFA, DARPA, and California potato and tomato research boards.

She officially begins on  November 1 with an appointment that is 60% research and 40% teaching. Her office is located in Rm 309 Plant Science Building with her lab based in Rm 302. Beginning in Spring 2021 Clare will be the primary instructor for PLPPM4010, the core graduate class on molecular plant-microbe interactions.