International flavor in Kearney plant pathology lab

An international assemblage of minds is a key element in Themis Michailides' plant pathology lab at the UC Kearney Agricultural Research and Extension Center. Michailides is a plant pathologist and lecturer in the Department of Plant Pathology at UC Davis and based at Kearney.

Among the plant disease issues being addressed in the lab are aflatoxins in pistachios and almonds, black heart of pomegranate and limb dieback of figs.

Below are some of the new faces who joined the Michaelides team in summer 2012.

Christian Solorio graduated from Dinuba High School this year and begins his college education at Boston University in the fall. He is a Life Member of the California Scholarship Federation and was recently named the Dinuba Teenage Citizen of the Year.

Camarina Morales, a student at Orange Cove High School serving a summer internship at Kearney, is shown studying soil samples in the plant pathology lab.

Dr. ShuaiFei Chen is conducting research on botryosphaeria in walnut and pistachio. Chen is from China, by way of the University of Pretoria in South Africa, where he earned his Ph.D. in microbiology in 2011.

Lea Marquez of Nice, France (left), and Marion Mimbielle of Pau, France, are graduate students from Western Brittany University studying microbiology and food safety in the Michaides lab for the summer.