Ronald Biography
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Pamela C. Ronald |
Ronald high resolution image #2, (photo credit Debbie Aldridge, University of California, Davis)
Pamela Ronald is Professor of Plant Pathology at the University of California, Davis, where she studies the role that genes play in a plant's response to its environment. Her laboratory has genetically engineered rice for resistance to diseases and flooding, both of which are serious problems of rice crops in Asia and Africa. She also serves as Vice President for the Feedstocks Division and Director of Grass Genetics at the Joint Bioenergy Institute.
The Ronald Laboratory isolated and characterized the first pattern recognition receptor, proteins that are now known to play key roles in controlling innate immunity in plants and animals. Her work has been published in Science, Nature and other scientific periodicals and has also been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Le Monde, Popular Mechanics, CNN and on National Public Radio.
Ronald was a Fulbright Fellow from 1984-1985 and was named a Guggenheim Fellow in 2000. She is an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a 2008 Fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. In 2008 she and her colleagues were recipients of the USDA 2008 National Research Initiative Discovery Award for their work on submergence tolerant rice. In 2009, they were finalists for the 2009 World Technology Award for Environment and nominees for the Biotech Humanitarian Award.
Ronald is co-author with her husband, Raoul Adamchak, an organic farmer, of "Tomorrow's Table: Organic Farming, Genetic and the Future of Food". "Tomorrow's Table" was selected as one of the best books of 2008 by Seed Magazine and the Library Journal. In 2009, Ronald received the National Association of Science Writers Science in Society Journalism Award. She writes an award-winning blog on food, farming and genetics.
Read Grains of Truth, Reed Magazine, Summer 2009
