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Kelsey Galimba
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Dr. Kelsey D. Galimba
Innovative Fruit Production, Improvement and Protection
Post-doctoral Researcher Kelsey.Galimba@ars.usda.gov
Phone: (304) 725-3451 ext. 367
Fax: (304) 728-7232
Room 429

2217 Wiltshire Road

Appalachian Fruit Research Station

Kearneysville, WV 25430-2771

 

Curriculum Vitae

 

 

Education and Degrees

2015 Ph.D - Floral Evolution and Development. University of Washington, Seattle, WA

Dissertation: Duplication and Functional Divergence in the Floral Organ Identity Genes

2007 B.S. - Plant Biology. University of California, Davis, CA

2005 A.S - Biology. Sierra College, Rocklin, CA

 

Experience

Post-Doctoral Associate

(October 2015 - Present) Ann Callahan Lab, USDA-ARS, Appalachian Fruit Research Station (AFRS), Kearneysville, WV.

Comparative morphological and genetic study of fruit flesh development in four Rosaceous species with different fruit types.

 

Developmental Biology Trainee (NIH) / Research Assistant (July 2012 - 2015) /

(September 2009 – 2015) Veronica Di Stilio Lab, Department of Biology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA.

Characterization of duplicated floral organ identity genes in the basal eudicot Thalictrum, using an evo-devo approach.

 

Junior Specialist II (June 2007 - August 2009) Venkatesan Sundaresan Lab, Department of Plant Biology, University of California, Davis, CA.

Supervision of a large-scale rice genomics project to generate insertion lines for use in gene identification and analysis.

 

Laboratory Assistant (July 2006 - June 2007) Donald Strong Lab, Department of Evolution and Ecology, University of California, Davis, CA. Genotyping of Spartina samples to identify invasive and hybrid species present in the San Francisco Bay area.

 

Publications

Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=-khLqPMAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao

ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Kelsey_Galimba

 

Current Projects

Developmental mechanisms underlying fleshy fruit diversity in Rosaceae

The family Rosaceae is comprised of a number of economically important fruit and ornamental crop species which exhibit an impressive diversity of independently-derived fleshy fruit morphologies. In collaboration with the University of Maryland, we are comparing the development of four types of fleshy fruits from Rosaceae: peaches, apples, raspberries and strawberries. We are interested in determining what specific genes and regulatory gene networks have evolved to initiate and specify fleshy tissue development, which originates in different floral parts for each fruit type. At AFRS, we are focusing on the two tree crops: peaches, with flesh arising from the ovary wall, and apples, with a core formed by the ovary wall and flesh derived from the hypanthium. We are taking a number of approaches to characterize each fruit type, including creating comparative developmental ontogenies, analyzing gene expression patterns across different tissue types and developmental stages, and exploring how the application of exogenous plant hormones affects early fruit development.