Plant Pathology
Get excited about fungi?
Associate Professor Lori Carris in the Department of Plant Pathology smiles and gestures widely when she describes leading her undergraduate students into the study of fungi.
“How can you not be excited?” she asks.
Carris uses fungi to teach scientific methods and how to think critically. In her course for non-science majors, "Molds, Mildews, Mushrooms: The 5th Kingdom," students explore how fungi impact human history and their daily lives.
Don’t be surprised to hear discussions about toenail fungus, smuts, and magic mushrooms, or to examine the larger, real-world impact of mold, like the homes destroyed by mold after Hurricane Katrina.
Off to China to deal with smuts
Also a plant pathologist, Carris leads research on the scientific study of fungi's role as pathogens in the animal and plant worlds. Because of her 20-year study of a fungus called “smuts” that affects grasses like wheat, she is one of the few people in the world who can identify smut spores that contaminate commercial grass seed crops.
China imports a great deal of the Pacific Northwest's seed for Kentucky Bluegrass, and fear contamination of their agriculture by smut spores. Carris has made trips to China to assist their quarantine officials in determining what risk, if any, the spores hold for Chinese crops.
Musical mycology
Carris's goals are for students to gain a greater appreciation for the biological world and become better-educated citizens, able to assess things they read in the news and encounter in their lives.
Carris delights in her students. “They’re amazing and so engaged," she says.
One non-science student, a music composition major, even wrote a song about fungi. Students in the Plant Pathology Department often stay around after class and talk with the professors. Or hum a tune.
