Overview

In 2007, I`ve continued as Cornell`s Vice Provost for Life Sciences. In this position I am responsible to promote and administer the New Life Sciences Initiative, including the hiring of new faculty, planning for new buildings, developing shared core research facilities, and supporting educational and training activities based on Cornell`s comprehensive investments in the life sciences.

Research Focus

Over the past two decades, tremendous progress has been made to advance our understanding of crop genome organization, variation, and evolution, particularly as it relates to potential discovery and exploitation of useful genic or genotypic diversity in plants. Critical to this progress has been advances in molecular biology/genetics, genomics, as well as thoughtful applications of the theories of evolutionary biology and plant breeding. It is well recognized that a crop genome is a dynamic unit whose organization and variation has been molded by evolutionary processes and human intervention. Dr. Kresovich’s research objectives are: (1) to identify regions of the sorghum and maize genomes which have been fixed through evolution, domestication, or crop improvement and associate these selective sweeps with useful types and traits, (2) to characterize and understand the relationship between DNA sequence variation and desirable phenotype, (3) to identify both conserved sequences across grass/grain families and genera and rapidly evolving sequences between species and individuals to predict gene diversity and function, (4) to characterize molecular diversity of sorghum and maize in natural populations, landraces, and elite germplasm, and (5) to develop and test strategies to efficiently discover, conserve, and use variation in natural populations and genebank collections by integrating current advances in genomics, bioinformatics, and plant genetics/breeding.

Additional Links

• Other
• Link to CALS Research and Impact
• Link to Research & Expertise Across Cornell

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