Sundaresan elected to National Academy of Sciences
Venkatesan Sundaresan, a plant reproduction biologist who specializes in rice, has been elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Sundaresan has a dual appointment as a professor in the Department of Plant Sciences, in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, and the Department of Plant Biology, College of Biological Sciences.
Sundaresan’s laboratory conducts research on plant reproduction and host-microbiome interactions in roots. Among many notable achievements in these fields, Sundaresan and colleagues discovered a method to produce clonal seeds directly from plants, bypassing the sexual reproduction process. He has also played integral roles in the elucidation of the structure and function of root microbiomes using rice as a model, leading to the identification of bacteria that may help promote drought tolerance. Collectively, his work on the biology of rice plants may eventually help lower the cost of hybrid rice seed, making high-yielding, drought resistant rice strains available to low-income farmers worldwide.
Sundaresan is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has held faculty appointments at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and at the National University of Singapore, where he was founding director of the Institute of Molecular Agrobiology. He has also served as a program director at the National Science Foundation of BREAD, a collaborative program with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to benefit agriculture in developing countries. He received his Ph.D. in biophysics from Harvard University.
Sundaresan is one of three UC Davis professors who were recently elected as NAS members. They are among 120 new members and 23 international members announced by the academy May 2. Members are elected in recognition of their contributions to original research. Membership in the academy is considered one of the highest honors a scientist can achieve.
– Edited by Trina Kleist
Media Resources
National Academy of Sciences Elects Members and International Members (news release)
Media Contact:
- Andy Fell, News and Media Relations, (530) 304-8888, ahfell@ucdavis.edu
- Trina Kleist, Department of Plant Sciences, (530) 601-6846, tkleist@ucdavis.edu