David P. Jackson
Professor
Ph.D., John Innes Institute, U.K. 1991
Nandhakumar Shanmugaraj
Nandhakumar Shanmugaraj, being passionate about plant science from childhood, earned his PhD in Agriculture sciences from Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg/Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics & Crop Plant Research (IPK), Germany. During his PhD, he studied the molecular mechanism behind pre-anthesis tip degeneration of the barley inflorescence in the lab of Prof. Thorsten Schnurbusch. He joined the Jackson lab in July 2023 to answer some of the open questions on maize inflorescence development for improving grain yield. He is particularly interested in dissecting the functions of deeply conserved non-coding sequences of the maize developmental genes by targeted genome editing. Nandha enjoys listening to and playing music, cooking, and traveling when not in the lab.
Vijina Varapparambath
Vijina Varapparambath graduated from Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Pune (IISERPune) in India under the supervision of Dr. Kalika Prasad. She dissected the molecular mechanism driving the self-organization during de novo shoot organogenesis and identified CUC2-XTH9 axis acts non-cell autonomously to promote shoot meristem formation de novo and her studies provide a simple module accountable for self-organized morphogenesis.
In the Jackson Lab, she is investigating the mechanism of intercellular mRNA trafficking through plasmodesmata in Arabidopsis as a model organism. Vijina’s research is specifically centered on how RNA exosome subunit, RRP44A, facilitates the movement of mRNA signals between cells in plants.
In her leisure time, Vijina enjoys engaging in drawing and painting. She loves traveling and exploring different places whenever she has the opportunity to do so.
Jiaqi (Jackie) Zhou
Jackie earned her Ph.D. in Horticulture and Agronomy from the University of California, Davis, where she investigated the transcriptional and epigenetic regulation of tomato fruit ripening under abiotic stress. She joined the Jackson lab in October 2024 to study maize regeneration mechanisms using morphogenic regulators. Her research focuses on the transcriptional and hormonal regulation of somatic embryogenesis. Outside the lab, Jackie enjoys running and climbing.
Tara Skopelitis
Sessen Daniel Iohannes
Sessen received her bachelor‘s degree in Biological Sciences from the University of Pisa and her master’s degrees in Molecular Biotechnology and Agricultural Sciences from the University of Pisa and Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna (Pisa, Italy). Prior to joining the School of Biological Sciences at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory for her Ph.D. research, she worked as a research assistant in Prof. Mario Enrico Pe’s Lab at Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, where she used landscape genomics approaches to study local adaptation and genomic vulnerability to climate change in Eragrostis tef. In the Jackson Lab, she is investigating questions at the interface of maize evolutionary genetics and developmental biology to tackle genetic redundancy - the next frontier in plant functional studies. Outside of research, Sessen leads several outreach and community engagement initiatives. She co-leads the outreach branch of the CSHL Women In Science and Engineering (WiSE) network, and she coordinates the African Researchers’ Network within the American Society of Plant Biologists. Sessen is also an avid reader of historical fiction and an amateur poet.
Matias Gleason
Lab Photo, 2025
Back row: Dave Jackson, Sessen Daniel Iohannes, Thu Tran, Jiaqi Zhou, Vijina Varapparambath
Front row: Yoko Shimizu (Visiting Artist-in-Residence), Tara Skopelitis, Nandhakumar Shanmugaraj, Neel Singh, Matias Gleason, Keita Takahashi, and Helen Wang
Lab Photo, 2023
Back row: Dave Jackson, Thu Tran, Sessen Daniel Iohannes, Penelope Lindsay, Xiaosa Xu, Kyle Swentosky
Front row: Spencer Elliott, Jessica Finger, Emma Morley, Kemelia Buford, Tara Skopelitis, Theresa Clark, Nandhakumar Shanmugaraj
Summer Students, 2021 From Left to Right: Taylor Petrizzo, Z’Dhanne Williams, Katie Lam, Matt Venezia, Annabel Shen, & Sessen Daniel Iohannes.
Jackson-Yang Lab, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, China
Dave is a Chang Jiang Scholar, and visiting Professor, at Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, China.
Please contact him for employment opportunities at HZAU.
Alumni
Thu Tran, Deputy Director, Vinaseed
Kyle Swentowsky, Scientific and Technical Editor
Penelope Lindsay, Research Associate, Oregon State University
Theresa Clark, PhD Program, University of Pennsylvania
Xiaosa Xu, Assistant Professor, University of California, Davis
Munenori Kitagawa, Assistant Professor, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, China
Jae Hyung Lee, Post Doc, University of Utah
Lei Liu, Assistant Professor, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, China
Richelle Chen, Cardozo School of Law
Edgar Demesa-Arevalo, Post Doc, Heinrich-Heine University, Dusseldorf, Germany
Yinan Jian, PhD Student, Huazhong Agricultural University, China
Fang Xu, Assistant Professor, Shandong University, China
Hannes Claeys, Senior Scientist at Inari Agriculture
Juan Huang, PhD Student, Huazhong Agricultural University, China
Qingyu Wu, Assistant Professor, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science, Beijing, China
Byoung Il Je, Assistant Professor, Pusan National University, Korea
Rachappa Balkunde, Postdoctoral Researcher, Washington University, St.Louis
Michael Pautler, Research Associate, Trait Development at Vineland Research & Innovation Centre
Andrea Eveland, Principal Investigator, Donald Danforth Plant Science Center
Yael Galon, Researcher, Evogene. Rehovot, Israel
Lang Son Vi, Researcher, The Agricultural Genetics Institute, Ha Noi, Viet Nam
Susumu Hiraga, Researcher, National Agriculture and Food Research Organization, Tsukuba, Japan
Huyen Bui, Post Doctoral Fellow, University of Utah
Fang Yang, Assistant Professor, Huazhong Agriculture University
Peter Bommert, Assistant Professor, Hamburg, Germany
Stacy DeBlasio, Post Doc, Cornell University
Yoselin Benitez Alfonso, Academic Fellow, Centre for Plant Science, University of Leeds, UK
Fumio Shiobara, Researcher, National Institute of Agrobiological Sciences, Tsukuba, Japan
Michelle Cilia, Research Molecular Biologist at USDA-ARS; Adjunct Assistant Scientist
Alexander Goldschmidt, Institute of Plant Science,The Volcani Center,Rishon Lezion, Israel
Xianfeng Xu, Patent Agent, Arnold & Porter
Robyn Johnston, Post Doc Associate, Cornell University
Clinton Whipple, Assistant Professor, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah
Namiko Satoh Nagasawa, Associate Professor, Akita University, Japan
Daniel Bouyer, Research Fellow, Institut de Biologie Moléculaire des Plantes
Amitabh Mohanty, Group Leader, Genetic Discovery, E.I. DuPont India Pvt Ltd
Byeong Ha Lee, Associate Professor, Sogang University, Korea
Andrea Gallavotti, Principal Investigator, Rutgers Waksman Institute of Microbiology
Jae-Yean Kim, Professor, Gyeongsang National University, South Korea
Anna Giulini, Researcher, The National Research Institute for Food and Nutrition
Guy Birkenmeier, Of Counsel, Baker & McKenzie LLP