College of Agriculture & Natural Resources Department of Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences

August 2016- present

Dr. Medina Mora is currently a Research Assistant II in Dr. Hausbeck’s laboratory at Michigan State University (MSU). Her current interest involves fungal and obligate pathogens of vegetables and ornamentals, where she can apply molecular techniques to detect, identify, and manage diseases. Her most recent position as laboratory technician in Dr. Sakalidis’ laboratory at MSU involved forest tree diseases. Her areas of expertise include but not limited to chestnut blight disease and bacterial canker of tomatoes.

Dr. Medina Mora received her PhD at Michigan State University, where she worked on current aspects of pollination biology of chestnut trees (Chestnut Orchard Solutions), and the use of Simple Sequence Repeats (SSR) to characterize chestnut trees growing in Michigan.

She obtained her MS from the Department of Plant Pathology at MSU where she determined and defined genetic variation of the causal agent of bacterial canker disease, and described the etiology and development of bird’s eye lesions on tomatoes.

She attained her BS degree in Microbiology (Summa Cum Laude) from the University of Puerto Rico-Humacao. As an undergraduate, she attended the REU program sponsored by The Center of Microbial Ecology directed by Dr. James Tiedje, where she was able to master troubleshooting Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) technology.

Her interest to apply molecular biology to current plant pathology issues has never stopped since she discovered how to integrate three of her passions: microbiology, plants, and technology.