Graduate students in the Field of Plant Biology have an abundance of options for their careers after graduation. Plant Biology graduates are strong competitors, well-rounded scientists with solid backgrounds, multidisciplinary, collaborative and with long-term vision. Browse our featured alumni and our graduates.
Featured graduates
Damon Little is a 2005 graduate of the Department of Plant Biology (L.H. Bailey Hortorium). Damon finished his PhD with Kevin Nixon researching the evolution and circumscription of the Cupressaceae: Cupressus and Callitropsis. Damon continues to study this conifer family that includes the redwoods (Metasequoia, Sequoia, and Sequoiadendron), arborvitae (Thuja), junipers (Juniperus) and cypress (Callitropsis and Cupressus). After working three years as a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Program for Molecular Studies at the New York Botanic Garden in the Bronx, Damon Little has been promoted to Assistant Curator of Bioinformatics at the Institute of Systematic Botany in the Cullman Program for Molecular Systematic Studies. Damon’s research program, which is an extension his graduate studies in the Department of Plant Biology, involves a three prong approach, involving organismal biology, phylogenetic theory, and information technology/bioinformatics. His organismal studies focus on integrating anatomical, morphological and developmental information that can be used to inform cladistic analyses, which dovetail with his bioinformatics study of the performance evaluation of existing DNA barcoding algorithms. He has written as series of PERL scripts that operate in conjunction with a SQL database to gather and store morphological and taxonomic data.
| Graduation year | Name | Lab/Advisor | Positions after graduation |
| 2008 | Stephanie Topp | Hua | Technician in Harrison Lab, Boyce Thompson Institute, Cornell |
| 2008 | Yongqing Li | Hua | Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Plant & Microbial Biology, University of Berkeley |
| 2008 | Nathan Boggs | Nasrallah | Researcher at a Medical Research lab (CA) |
| 2008 | Heidi Rutschow | vanWijk | Postdoctoral fellow at the Biology department, University of Amherst |
| 2008 | Michael Mazourek | Jahn | Research Associate, Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics at Cornell University |
| 2008 | Caroline Kellogg | Doyle/Kresovich | Unknown |
| 2008 | Sarah Covshoff | Brutnell | Postdoctoral Fellow at the International Rice Research Institute, Philipines |
| 2008 | Breeanna Urbanowicz | Rose | Postdoctoral Fellow at the Complex Carbohydrate Research Center, University of Georgia |
| 2008 | Yi Wang | Hua | Unknown |
| 2008 | Patrick Brown | Kresovitch | Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute for Genomic Diversity, Cornell University |
| 2007 | Ling Bai | Brutnell | Postdoctoral fellow at the Boyce Thompson Institute, Cornell |
| 2007 | Gillman Jason | Hanson | Postdoctoral Fellow USDA-ARS University of Missouri-Columbia |
| 2007 | Ashlee McCaskill | Turgeon | Unknown |
| 2007 | Melinda Klein | Kochian | USDA/ARS Nutrition Research Center, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston |
| 2007 | Feinan Wu | Tanksley | Posdoctoral fellow at the Dept at Waters Global Services, Europe |
| 2007 | Sue Sherman Broyles | Nasrallah | Postdoctoral fellow at Dept of Plant Biology, Cornell University |
| 2006 | Jimmy Ytterberg | vanWijk | Postdoctoral fellow at Dept of Chemistry and Biochemistry, UCLA |
| 2006 | Andrea Rudella | vanWijk | Proteomics Support Specialist at Waters Global Services, Europe |
| 2006 | Lisa Giacomelli | vanWijk | Postdoctoral fellow at Dept of Molecular Genetics, Instituto de Biologia Molecular de Barcelona, Spain |
| 2006 | Jackeline Salazar | Nixon | Associate Profesor at Universidad Autonoma de Santo Domingo (UASD), Dominican Republic |
| 2005 | Elizabeth Hermsen | Crepet | Postdoctoral Fellow at University of Kansas |
| 2004 | Gustavo Azenha | Bates | Research Scholar at Barnard College |
| 2004 | Mac Alford | Luckow | Assistant Professor at University of Southern Mississippi - Hattiesburg |
| 2004 | Damon P. Little | Nixon | Assistant Curator at New York Botanical Garden |
| 2004 | Amanda Ingram | Doyle | Assistant Professor at Wabash College, Indiana |
| 2003 | Ernest Kwok | Hanson | Visiting Assistant Professor, Claremont College |
| 2003 | Tatyana Livshultz | Luckow | Assistant Professor at University of Nebraska, Omaha |
| 2003 | Robert Nilsson** | vanWijk | Research Scientist at a Biotechnology company, Sweden |
| 2002 | Sangbom Michael Lyi | Hanson | Research Associate, USDA-ARS |
| 2002 | Antonio Alfonso | Hanson | Head of Division, Philippine Rice Research Institute |
| 2001 | Lucia Vazquez | Nixon | Assistant Professor at University of Illinois |
| 2001 | Serena Heckler | Bates | Lecturer at Durham University |
| 2001 | Christopher Hardy | Davis | Assistant Professor at Millersville University |
| 2001 | Carl Lewis | Doyle | Richard H. Simons Senior Curator at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden |
| 2001 | Thomas Silva | Davies | Senior Lecturer at Cornell University |
| 2000 | Yan Xu | Hanson | Research Scientist, New England Biolabs |
| 2000 | Donovan Bailey, C. | Doyle | Assistant Professor at New Mexico State University |
| 2000 | Helga Ochoterena-Booth | Nixon | Associate Professor at Herbario Nacional (MEXU) Instituto de Biologia, UNAM, Mexico |
| 2000 | Marcus McFerren | Rodriguez | Lecturer and Medical Student at Weill Cornell Medical Center |
| 2000 | Mark Simmons | Davis | Associate Professor at Colorado State University |
| 1999 | Fabian Michelangeli | Rodriguez | Assistant Curator at New York Botanical Garden |
| 1999 | Eve Emshwiller | Doyle | Assistant Professor at University of Wisconsin |
| 1998 | Diane E. Sklensky | Davies | Assistant Professor at LeMoyne University, Syracuse NY |
| 1998 | Tao Yang | Davies | Senior Researcher at Du Pont, Princeton NJ. |
| 1998 | Lawrence Kelly | Luckow | Assistant Curator and Director of Graduate Studies, New York Botanical Garden |
| 1998 | John Berry | Rodriguez | Assistant Professor at Florida International University |