Dr. Gwyn A Beattie

Gwyn Beattie received a B.A. in Chemistry from Carleton College and a Ph.D. in Cellular and Molecular Biology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  After doing post-doctoral research at the University of California-Berkeley in microbial ecology, she took a position at Iowa State University where she is currently the Robert Earle Buchanan Distinguished Professor of Bacteriology for Research and Nomenclature.  Beattie’s research examines the genomics and ecology of plant-associated microbes to better understand the factors driving successful plant colonization and the many impacts that microbes can have on plant health. Current projects are exploring the biology of two vascular bacterial pathogens, Erwinia tracheiphila and Serratia marcescens, the mechanisms driving the assembly of microbiomes on roots in the presence and absence of abiotic stress, and the roles of light-sensing and environmental stress in the ecological fitness of the foliar pathogen Pseudomonas syringae.

Dr. Beattie is a Fellow of the American Phytopathological Society, the Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Annual Review of Phytopathology, and a member of the Board of Directors of the International Alliance for Phytobiomes Research. She is active in professional service, serving on numerous advisory boards, organizing committees for international conferences on phytobiomes and on phyllosphere microbiology, and is a prior Chair of the American Phytopathological Society Public Policy Board. She teaches Bacterial-Plant Interactions, Microbial Ecology, and the Biology of Microorganisms, and has a wonderful team of scientists, post-docs, graduate students and undergraduates in her research group.