Principal Investigator

Barbara Blanco-Ulate (bblanco@ucdavis.edu)
Associate Professor
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Bárbara is a faculty in the Department of Plant Sciences at UC Davis. She is originally from Costa   Rica, where she graduated with a BS in Biotechnology Engineering. She obtained a PhD in Plant Biology from UC Davis, studying   the susceptibility of tomato fruit to fungal diseases, and conducted postdoctoral research in the Department of Viticulture and Enology, focusing on ripening and pathogen infections of grape berries. Since joining the faculty in 2016, she has established a program focused on fruit biology and quality. Her current research integrates physiological, genomic, and biochemical approaches to study fruit development and fruit-pathogen interactions with the goal of improving the quality, nutrition, and shelf-life of fruit products. She is also the Co-Director of the UC Postharvest Research and Extension Center.

Graduate Students

Isabel Ortega-Salazar
Ph.D. Student, Horticulture and Agronomy
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Isabel is a first-year Ph.D. student researching tomato cell wall disassembly during ripening and its influence on the quality of processing tomatoes. She did her undergraduate studies in Agricultural Sciences at the University of Talca in Chile. Before starting her Ph.D., Isabel worked as a lab manager in the Blanco Lab from 2017 to 2019. In her free time, she likes drawing, painting, singing, and dancing.

Saskia Mesquida Pesci
Ph.D. Student, Plant Pathology
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Saskia is a first-year Ph.D. student researching early detection of the pathogen Botrytis cinerea in strawberry fruit. She obtained her B.S. in Biotechnology from the Polytechnic University of Madrid in 2016. In 2018, she completed her Masters in Plant Biotechnology at Wageningen University in the Netherlands, where she studied molecular mechanisms of plant-microbe interactions and found ways to strengthen plant immunity. Outside the lab, you can find Saskia sightseeing, visiting museums, playing the violin, or lost in a good book.

Research Associates & Lab Assistants

Jacob Olaerts
Economics & Biological Sciences

Benjamin Cohen Stillman
Biological Sciences

Peng Huang
Biotechnology

Visiting Scholars and Interns

Past Members

Undergraduate Assistants

Justin T. Le, 2019-2020
Aaron Lee, 2019-2020
Dustin Williams, 2019-2020
Curtis Yam, 2019-2020
Anima Sharma, 2019-2020
Nancy Her, 2018-2020
Sean Garay, 2019
Sarah Ream, 2018-2019
Brittany Tam, 2018-2019
Karina Gallegos, 2017-2019
Botao Tao, 2018
Emily Lam, 2018
Jasmine Ortega, 2018
Derek Kawahara, 2017-2018
Prachi Jha, 2017-2018

Visiting Scholars

Silvia Rodriguez Pires, 2019
Maria Lopez de la Calle, 2019
Simone Piancatelli, 2019
Caio Cattai de Andrade, 2019
Marta Balsells Llauradó, 2019
Francisco Javier Fernández-Acero, Ph.D., 2019
Victor Papin, 2017-2018
Casper van den Abeele, 2017
Duoduo Wang, 2017

Postdoctoral Fellows

Baljeet Gill, Ph.D., 2018

Graduate Students

Stefan Petrasch, Ph.D., 2017-2020
Fangyi Wang, M.Sc., 2019-2020
Sofia Guerrero Moreno, M.Sc., 2019

High School Interns

Elijah Lerner, 2020
Ozaliqe Williams, 2019