Short Biography

Robert M Goodman

Robert M. Goodman, a plant biologist and virologist by training, is an expert on soil microorganisms and plant disease.

Prior to assuming his decanal duties at Rutgers, Goodman was a professor of plant pathology and environmental studies at the University of Wisconsin. There, he studied microbial diversity using culture-independent methods. His group discovered a clade of soil Crenarchaeota inhabiting soil and plant roots, and characterized the diversity of uncultivated members of the bacterial division acidobacterium. He and collaborators also pioneered the field now known as "metagenomics." Goodman's work has appeared in premier journals, including Nature, Science, Virology, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Goodman also served as chair of the undergraduate major in molecular biology and as chair of the oversight committee of the McKnight Foundation Collaborative Crop Research Program.

Goodman was previously senior scholar-in-residence at the National Research Council/National Academy of Sciences, executive vice-president of R&D at Calgene, Inc., and a professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Goodman was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and also chaired the Agriculture, Food and Renewable Resources section of the AAAS. He is also trustee of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).

Goodman holds a bachelor's degree in plant sciences and a doctorate in plant pathology from Cornell University. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship in plant virology at the John Innes Center in Norwich, England. Abstract