Dr. James C. Carrington, President

Dr. James C. Carrington became the President of the Danforth Plant Science Center in 2011. He formerly served as the Director of the Center for Genome Research and Biocomputing (CGRB), the Stewart Professor for Gene Research, and Distinguished Professor of Botany and Plant Pathology at Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon.

Carrington received his doctorate in Plant Pathology from the University of California, Berkeley, and began his prominent career as a professor in the Department of Biology at Texas A & M University, where he stayed for nine years. Carrington also served on the faculty at Washington State University before his tenure at OSU.

His awards include the Presidential Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation, the Ruth Allen Award from the American Society for Phytopathology, and the Humboldt Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. He has been elected a Member of the National Academies of Science and a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology, the American Phytopathological Society, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Carrington is internationally recognized for his research on gene silencing, the functions of small RNA, and virus-host interactions. He is a world leader in the study of "small RNA," which was cited by the journal Science in 2002 as the scientific "Breakthrough of the Year." This work has played a major role in unraveling some of the mechanisms by which plants and other organisms use small snippets of RNA to control growth, development and defense against viruses.