Mailing Address:
Fifield Hall
2550 Hull Road
PO Box 110690
Gainesville, Florida 32611
Office: 2247 Fifield Hall
Phone: (352) 273-4847
E-mail: brath@ufl.edu
Google Scholar: Bala Rathinasabapathi
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Areas of Research
- Capsicum breeding, genetics & genomics
- Synthetic biology approaches to biofortification
- Horticulture and Breeding of Camellia Tea
- Purple Sweet Potatoes and Value-added Vegetables
- Arsenic hyperaccumulation in ferns
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Teaching Responsibilities
- VEC 2100 – World Herbs and Vegetables
- VEC 3221C – Commercial Vegetable Production
- VEC 4905 – Independent Study
- HOS 1014 – Vegetable Gardening
- HOS 5242 and HOS 4932 - Genetics and Breeding of Vegetables
- HOS 5711 – Phytochemicals in Food and Health (alternate years)
- BOT 6935 – Plant Biochemistry (team taught)
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Educational Background
- Ph.D. - (1990) in Biology, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada
- M.Sc. - (1985) in Genetics, Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, India
- B.Sc. - (1983) in Agriculture, Annamalai University, Tamil Nadu, India
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Work Experience
- Post-doctoral research at the MSU-DOE Plant Research Lab, Michigan State University, East Lansing and IRBV, University of Montreal, Montreal.
- As one of the two advisors for Gator Citrus Club, travelled to study horticultural industries in Mexico, Costa Rica, Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador, Dominican Republic, Spain and Puerto Rico.
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Honors and Awards
- AAAS Fellow, American Assoc. for the Advancement of Science (2023);
- Outstanding Graduate Educator, American Society of Horticultural Science (2021);
- University of Florida Roche Teaching Scholar (2021);
- NACTA Educator Award, North American Colleges and Teachers of Agriculture (2021);
- Featured in Membership Corner, American Society of Plant Biologists Newsletter (2011)
- Elected to Gamma Sigma Delta, University of Florida (2002);
- Outstanding Teacher of the Year, Environ. Horticulture Club, Univ. of Florida (1997-1998);
- Travel award, American Society of Plant Biologists (1998);
- University of Saskatchewan Graduate Scholarship (1985-1990);
- Fellowship, India Foundation, Pune (1985);
- Summer fellow, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Bombay (1984);
- Indian Council of Agricultural Research Junior Research Fellowship (1983-1985);
- National Merit Scholarship (1980-1983)
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Program Personnel
- Jingwei Fu, Ph.D. (Graduated Dec 2023)
- Caitlin Clarke Ph.D. (Graduated Dec 2023)
- Dominick Padilla, (Ph.D. Candidate)
- Dr. Azhar Najjar (Visiting Scientist, 2022)
- Dr. Hugo Pinheiro (Visiting Scientist, 2021)
- Mohamed Tahir (Visiting student, 2021)
- Nighat Zia (Visiting student, 2021)
- Aparna Krishnamurthy, Ph.D. (Graduated in Aug 2014)
- Elton Goncalves, Ph.D. (Graduated in Aug 2015)
- Newton Kilasi, Ph.D. (Graduated in Dec 2016)
- Saul Sotomayor, M.S. (Graduated Aug 2015)
- Qingyuan Xiang, Ph.D. student
- David Friedman, Ph.D. student
- Jingwei Fu, Ph.D. student
- Adeel Shahid (Visiting graduate student, Spring 2018)
- Shazia Arif (Visiting graduate student, Spring 2014)
- Sana Tesheen (Visiting graduate student, Summer 2014)
- Manal El-Zohri Ph.D. (Visiting scholar, Spring-Summer 2014)
- Francisco De Carvalho Ph.D. (Visiting professor, Amazonia, Brazil, 2018)
- Maria Luiza Grigio (Visiting graduate student, 2015-16)
- Building Better Peppers Program (current or recent undergraduates):
- Hailey Maurer (2022-2023)
- Alex Butler (2023)
- Emily Sanz (2023)
- Yang Yue (2017-2018)
- Yanlin Wang (2017-2018)
- Nidhi Patel (Summer, 2018)
- Thomas J. Roth (Summer, 2018)
- Isabel Branstrom (Fall 2013)
- Mackenzie DeNew (2015-18)
- Dylan Kovach (2016-17)
- Christopher Imler (2017)
- Jessica Webster (2017)
- Christine Barnes (2017)
- Nicholas Eagel, Mitchell Clifton, Sasha Camenkar and Briana Aguila (Summer 2013)
- Katrina Benzrihem and Denee Salazar (Spring 2013)