William H. Danforth Fellowship

The William H. Danforth Graduate Fellowship, established 2015, is a one-year fellowship supporting outstanding plant science PhD students whose research demonstrates great promise for humankind. Thanks to funders Roy and Diana Vagelos, WHD Fellow recipients have the opportunity to conduct their research with the guidance of outstanding principal investigators at the Danforth Center.

Past fellows have gone on to attain notable careers in the sciences and have published papers on subjects regarding circadian rhythms in plants, the root architecture of maize, and more. These early-career scientists are the leading principal investigators of tomorrow, tackling hunger and climate change. See the gallery of WHD Fellowship recipients below.

Recipients

2024 Sarah Pardi

Sarah Pardi is a sixth-year PhD student in Plant and Microbial Biosciences Program at Washington University in St. Louis. A native of the Bay Area, she was previously a McNair Scholar at Loyola Marymount University. At the Danforth Center, Sarah works in the laboratory of Principal Investigator Dmitri Nusinow, PhD. Sarah’s thesis focuses on how plants perceive light. A greater understanding of this process would allow scientists to develop plants that better optimize sunlight capture—helping to grow more food for a growing world.

2023 Ketra Oketcho

As a child in Uganda, Ketra Oketcho showed a keen interest in the science behind the natural world. Today, she is a third-year graduate biology student at the University of Missouri - St. Louis. In the labs of Principal Investigators Nigel Taylor, PhD, and Becky Bart, PhD, Ketra is working to understand how cassava, a staple crop in her home country, confers resistance to cassava mosaic disease—a key threat to food security.

2022 Kiona Elliott

In 2023, Elliott earned her PhD in the Plant and Microbial Biosciences Program at Washington University in St. Louis. Her passion is food security. In her work with Danforth Center Principal Investigator Becky Bart, PhD, Elliott focuses on investigating the genetic mechanisms underlying cassava susceptibility to Xanthomonas-induced bacterial blight. Her project has the potential to help feed the 500 million people who depend on cassava for their daily calories, as well as enhance the sustainability of agriculture. She is currently a Gene Expression Post Doctorate Scientist at Bayer Crop Science.

2021 Diego Cuerda-Gil

Cuerda-Gil was a graduate student at The Ohio State University, from which he received his PhD in late 2021. He worked in the lab of Danforth Center Principal Investigator Keith Slotkin, PhD, which focuses on DNA expression in plant cells. For his project, Diego worked on a synthetic biology approach to tether proteins of interest to an RNA. This research will enable us to understand what different proteins do to the RNA, and the system he created will be used for crop improvement towards feeding a growing world. Diego is now a postdoc for genome engineering at Bayer Crop Science in St. Louis.

2020 Zachary Harris

Since 2017, Harris has been a member of the lab of Danforth Center Principal Investigator Allison Miller, PhD, where the focus is on how perennial plants respond to dynamic environments. Pursuing his PhD at Saint Louis University, Harris defended his dissertation in 2022 on key features of how long-lived crop species function and adapt, using grapevine as a model system. This research has implications for growing crops in a changing climate. He is currently a postdoctoral associate in the Miller lab.

2019 Suresh Pokhrel

Pokhrel was a member of the lab of Danforth Center Principal Investigator Blake Meyers, PhD, starting in the fall of 2015. The primary emphasis of the Meyers lab is the analysis of small RNAs in plants. Pokhrel defended his thesis, a study of the roles of small RNAs in male fertility in eudicots and received his PhD in 2021. The mechanism he elucidated is crucial for speeding hybridization in important crops like mustards, tomato, strawberry, flax, and sunflower. He is currently working as a postdoctoral researcher in the Agricultural Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

2018 Maria Sorkin

Sorkin was a PhD student at Washington University in St. Louis and did her doctoral research in the lab of Danforth Center Principal Investigator Dmitri A. Nusinow, PhD. Her dissertation research focused on identifying the protein-protein interactions involved in clock function. Ultimately, this knowledge can be used to manipulate agriculturally relevant, clock-regulated phenotypes, such as flowering time. Maria received her PhD in 2022 and is an organism engineer for Ginkgo Bioworks.

2017 Adam Bray

Bray was a member of the lab of Danforth Center Principal Investigator Chris Topp, PhD, for five years while earning his PhD in Plant Breeding, Genetics, and Genomics from the University of Missouri—Columbia. His dissertation research was focused on dissecting the genetic components that dictate root system architecture in maize. He currently works for Bayer Crop Science as a wheat product development scientist.

2016 Ally (Asaro) Fikas

Ally joined the lab of Danforth Center Principal Investigator Ivan Baxter, PhD, in 2014 while studying at Washington University in St. Louis in the Computational and Systems Biology program. Her work was aimed at developing an understanding of the mechanisms that shape ionomic variation among different environments, information that is especially important for selective breeding. She currently works as a data scientist technical lead at Bayer Crop Science.

2015 Gavriel Matt

Matt was graduate student in the Molecular Genetics and Genomics program at Washington University in St. Louis when he joined the lab of Danforth Center Principal Investigator James Umen, PhD, at the Enterprise Rent-A-Car Institute for Renewable Fuels. For his dissertation, Gavriel conducted research on the evolution of multicellularity in algae. His goal was to better understand the relationship between biomass production and cell growth. He is currently a bioinformatics research scientist at St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital.

A Testament to Friendship

Dr. Danforth awarding the Danforth Distinguished Service Award to Roy Vagelos, 2010

In 2015, Dr. P. Roy Vagelos and his wife, Diana Vagelos, longtime leaders in philanthropic giving for scientific and medical research and education, generously endowed the William H. Danforth Plant Science Fellowship in honor of William H. Danforth, MD, founding chairman of the Danforth Center.

Drs. Vagelos and Danforth shared a long friendship and many interests, including the great potential for science to improve human health and well-being. They first met in 1966 when Dr. Vagelos joined the faculty of the Washington University School of Medicine, where Dr. Danforth was Vice Chancellor for Medical Affairs before becoming Chancellor of Washington University in St. Louis in 1971.

Although Dr. Vagelos left the university in 1975 to pursue a career in industry, eventually serving as Chief Executive Officer of Merck & Co. Inc. from 1985 to 1994, he and Diana continued to have strong ties to the St. Louis region. When the Danforth Plant Science Center was established in 1998, Dr. Danforth recruited his trusted friend and colleague to join the Board of Directors, where they worked together to advance the mission of the Danforth Center. Dr. Vagelos retired from the board in 2014.

It was always a great pleasure working with someone that I had such confidence in and someone that I knew had only one motive. And that was: to make everybody better.

Dr. P. Roy Vagelos on William H. Danforth

Help us help early-career scientists

The WHD Fellowship is especially critical to attracting and retaining the best minds. Medical research receives significantly more federal and foundation funding, so individual donors can make a substantial difference by investing in plant science.

The Danforth Center Impact Fund supports early-stage projects and early-career scientists with technology, training, internships, and more. Make your gift today!

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