For the fifth year in a row, the faculty members have been recognized in the Highly Cited Researchers List, an annual compilation of the global leaders in scientific influence by Clarivate Analytics.

Castroverde, a post-doc in the He lab who researches how climate conditions influence plant defense responses, has won a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Postdoctoral Fellowship.

The freshly minted PRL alumnus, a former member of the Hu and He labs, will explore how pathogenic microbes manipulate plant communication systems to their advantage.

Find out what drew Sheng Yang He to plant biology, how he got into researching plant disease, and what he would have become had he not made it as a scientist.

The award recognizes the best doctoral dissertation in the plant sciences at MSU from the previous two years.

The Nature Communications study shows how high temperature weakens plant defenses while, separately, strengthening bacterial attacks.

Their research ranks among the top 1% most cited works in their fields during the year of publication. He and Howe have made the list three years in a row.

The former He lab post-doc joins the Institute of Plant Physiology and Ecology. She studies plant-microbe interactions and how plants control a healthy microbiome.