Four Scientists Recognized for Diverse, Creative, and Impactful Approaches to Disseminating Arabidopsis Knowledge
The North American Arabidopsis Steering Committee (NAASC) is deeply committed to the development, participation and recognition of Arabidopsis researchers from a diversity of backgrounds and experiences and to honoring and recognizing those that go above and beyond to positively impact the Arabidopsis Community.
The Dissemination of Arabidopsis Knowledge awards recognize community members that have demonstrated sustained commitment to sharing knowledge using a diversity of approaches including (1) innovative teaching using Arabidopsis resources; (2) outreach activities/initiatives utilizing Arabidopsis knowledge and resources, and/or (3) communication of Arabidopsis knowledge.
The individuals serve as role models for our community.
These awards are given in two categories: early career (graduate student or postdoctoral scholar) and later career (faculty and other non-trainee position). Nominations were submitted by community members that then organized review packages consisting of applicant CV, candidate statement of their suitability for the award, and several letters of support written by colleagues. A selection committee comprised of NAASC members and several community members review and select awardees. NAASC thanks all the community members that submitted nominations, gathered supporting letters, and helped review and select this year’s awardees!
This year’s recipients will participate in an online panel webinar in fall/early winter. Sign up to receive an invitation to the online panel and a link to the recording afterwards.
Based on nomination & support letters written by colleagues, the following inspirational Arabidopsis Community leaders were selected for this prestigious honor in 2025:
Early Career Category:
Dr. Natanella Illouz-Eliaz, Salk Institute, USA
Quotes about Nanatella from her supporters:
Natanella has consistently demonstrated exceptional dedication to communicating complex scientific concepts to a diverse audience & effectively disseminating Arabidopsis research globally.
Natanella’s mentorship of undergraduate students at UC San Diego showcases her commitment to innovative teaching and mentoring. Her students thrive under her guidance, becoming enthusiastic advocates of plant biology research, further expanding Arabidopsis knowledge to new communities.
Even at this early stage in her career, Natanella has garnered international recognition as a brilliant and promising young scientist.
Natanella is also an outstanding educator; during her PhD, she served as a teaching assistant in a course on the mechanisms of flowering in Arabidopsis and other plant species, consistently earning excellent evaluations.
Natanella’s efforts to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion, notably through initiatives like WISER—a mentoring platform she founded to support women postdoctoral researchers—demonstrate her broader commitment to fostering an inclusive research community.
Dr. Natanella Illouz-Eliaz, currently a postdoctoral scholar at the Salk Institute, has engaged in a number of efforts to disseminate knowledge about Arabidopsis and plant research and why Arabidopsis is an effective model organism. Prior to joining the Salk Institute, Natanella conducted research in tomato; however, in 2020 she switched to using Arabidopsis "which she uses to learn how plants recover from drought conditions. A major effect of global climate change is higher incidence of extreme weather, like drought, so the creation of drought tolerant crops has become increasingly crucial. By comparing Arabidopsis gene expression throughout drought and drought recovery, Natanella found a dynamic process marked by unique recovery genes. She discovered that the plant immune system jolts into action at the very start of the recovery process. This immune response, she concluded, is a proactive measure to combat the threat of bacteria entering tiny pores on plants as they reopen post-drought."
In addition to her research, Natanella has notably engaged in outreach activities aimed at younger audiences, exemplified by her authorship of the children’s book "Arbi the Model Plant," designed to introduce basic plant science and Arabidopsis research concepts to children in a captivating and accessible way. This initiative underscores her creativity and passion for nurturing future generations of scientists and promoting plant biology literacy from an early age. Natanella also has engaged in outreach on the value and importance of plant biology and Arabidopsis studies through podcasts aimed scientists and the public. She discusses why “plant research is so important, and even if you fail, how you learn to grow” in this episode of “Technically Speaking” and “recounts how her life plan went from business to biology—all because of a tomato field” in this episode of Beyond Plant Walls. She further supports plant science knowledge through mentoring undergraduates in Arabidopsis-related research and through her role as the co-chair of the Plant Cell Identity Committee of the Plant Cell Atlas Initiative. Moreover, her role in leading outreach and community engagement activities is commendable. She has significantly contributed to conferences and symposia notably chairing sessions at major events such as the International Conference on Arabidopsis Research (ICAR).
Later Career Category: Dr. Dawn Nagel, University of California, Riverside, USA
Quotes about Dawn from her supporters:
Dr. Nagel exemplifies this honor through her sustained and multifaceted efforts to advance, share, and apply Arabidopsis research across a wide array of audiences - from undergraduate students to international scientific collaborators to middle school classrooms.
Dawn is an important scientist in the Arabidopsis community that has worked to bring new scientists into the field, generate a new understanding of how Arabidopsis copes with environmental stressors, and developed valuable tools for comparative analysis between Arabidopsis and other species.
Dr. Nagel embodies the spirit of this award. Her career reflects the powerful synergy between research, teaching, mentorship, and public engagement. She creates and shares tools, trains the next generation of scientists, and builds bridges between the lab and the community. Her work makes Arabidopsis knowledge more accessible, more relevant, and more empowering for others to use.
Dr. Nagel's outreach extends Arabidopsis science beyond the university to K-12 students, teachers, and families, particularly from historically excluded backgrounds through virtual outreach sessions for middle schoolers and presentations at “Girls in STEM” events. Through these interactions, she introduces Arabidopsis research as a gateway into plant biology and biotechnology careers, serving as a visible and inspiring role model.
Dr. Nagel is a creative, influential, and committed academic focused on understanding the circadian clock's role in regulating plants' abiotic stress responses. Dr. Nagel uses multi-omics and computational approaches to generate a novel understanding of these processes. Dawn has been at the forefront of the role of circadian rhythms in regulating heat stress in plants. Her Plant Cell paper reported the first circadian translatome in plants and the first circadian abiotic stress translatome analysis. This touchstone paper defined new roles for the circadian clock in regulating global transcriptomic and translation responses to heat stress in plants. This work was also complemented with a user-friendly database (CAST-R) that allows the plant community to query her RNA-seq experiments to determine how their genes of interest are regulated through transcription and translation after a heat shock treatment and recovery. To increase the ability to compare datasets from A. thaliana to other species, CAST-R incorporates additional circadian data from different species for cross comparison. In addition to CAST-R, Dr. Nagel has a new computational protocol for easy and informative visualization of Gene Ontology terms.
In addition to her research, Dawn has developed an impressive outreach program that leverages her unique background to encourage the next generation of scientists from diverse backgrounds to pursue higher education in plant-related fields. As part of her NSF CAREER award, she mentors a select cohort of students typically underrepresented in science, transfer students from community colleges. Most recently (May 2025), Dawn (with co-PI Carolyn Rasmussen) was awarded a three year Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) from the US National Science Foundation entitled “Next generation plant biology and plant-microbe interactions” that will train undergraduates in 10 week-summer sessions with activities focusing on understanding plants and plant pathogens.
Dr. Nagel teaches both large-enrollment undergraduate courses (e.g., Introduction to Molecular Biology) and specialzed graduate courses (The Plant Genome, Epigenetics). In these courses she integrates real Arabidopsis datasets, literature, and case studies, giving students direct engagement with a model system that many will carry forward into their own research. Several of her courses emphasize communication across disciplines, leadership, and proposal writing, and help prepare students to communicate the relevance of Arabidopsis and plant science across diverse sectors. Additionally, her use of community-focused seminars, advising seminars for first-year students, and inquiry-based lab modules demonstrate her pedagogical innovation and her ability to translate Arabidopsis research into accessible learning experiences. She also actively participates in community science events like Plant Discovery Day, where her lab engages elementary students in hands-on experiments and observations centered on Arabidopsis. These experiences are not only educational - they are formative, planting seeds of scientific curiosity in students who may not otherwise encounter academic research in their early education. In additional service to the plant biology community, Dawn serves on the ASPB Science Policy and Awards Committees, where she advocates for the visibility of Arabidopsis science and the importance of community-building through open, interdisciplinary communication. Through these platforms, she helps guide how Arabidopsis research is presented and valued across national and international audiences.
Later Career Category: Dr. Nicholas Provart, University of Toronto, Canada
Quotes about Nick from his supporters:
Dr. Provart exemplifies a true commitment to public dissemination of Arabidopsis knowledge & research in three contexts, over two decades: as a provider of genome-scale data in an easily accessible & intuitive format; as a leader of the multinational Arabidopsis community; & through commitment to openly-accessible public education that have benefited 100,000+ students!
Nick has had transformative impact on communication within & beyond the Arabidopsis community. His impact on plant biology data visualization & hypothesis generation has been tremendous & has gone hand-in-hand with excellent community-wide communication, outreach & wider education efforts.
Through visionary pedagogy, widely adopted open-access resources, and relentless advocacy, Professor Provart has set the standard for sharing Arabidopsis knowledge- his impact on plant biology science, education & communication has been truly transformative.
Nick’s impact in disseminating Arabidopsis knowledge is unique, particularly through his leadership in developing and maintaining his team’s amazing bioinformatics resources that have empowered the global plant biology community. Nick built & maintained the Bio-Analytic Resource (BAR), an open-access platform whose eFP Browser, ePlant suite & Pathway Viewer serve > 500,000 annual users across academia & industry.
Beyond tool development, Nick has been a strong advocate and implementer for innovative teaching and Arabidopsis-based education. His courses and workshops - ranging from undergraduate teaching at the University of Toronto to international training sessions on computational biology - have introduced numerous students and researchers to Arabidopsis functional genomics. His ability to make complex bioinformatics tools accessible to experimental biologists has significantly expanded the reach and utility of these resources.
Over two decades, Nick Provart has demonstrated commitment to the dissemination of Arabidopsis research, beginning with the Bio-Analytic Resource for Plant Biology, which recently passed the 20 year mark. Coupling his love for aesthetics and for genome-scale data, he developed an intuitive interface to visualize gene expression derived from microarray datasets in Arabidopsis root cell types, and Arabidopsis exposed to a variety of abiotic stressors. This was accompanied by useful bioinformatic tools that were generally inaccessible to those who did not know how to code – including a duplicate remover, enrichment of cis-regulatory motifs within gene promoters and a Venn diagram “superselector”. This platform was extremely successful and enabled global access, without financial or education-based barriers to Arabidopsis genomic data. He continued to add, over these two decades, to this database with additional microarray, tiling arrays and RNAseq data, even newly incorporating single cell transcriptome data. Interfaces were also designed to move beyond the expression of individual genes – but to their interactions, including protein-DNA and protein-protein. Enabling access to these datasets– from the subcellular (including protein structure via AlphaFold2), to the kilometer scales - allowing any scientist to generate testable hypotheses regarding the function of their gene(s). It is worth noting that while the NSF Arabidopsis 2010 Project had the express goal of determining the function of every single Arabidopsis gene, it is only with the tools developed by Nick, that the world was able to access these data. Further, Nick has continued to fund these resources, in a selfless manner, by continuous requests to Canadian funding agencies for small pots of money that fund this critical resource. Most recently, a newly funded global endeavor, led by Dr. Provart (funded by Canadian, Japanese, Korean, American and UK organizations) will now continue this work by development of a data infrastructure, and which will ensure that Arabidopsis (and other plant species) data will continue to be disseminated for many years going forward.
Nick’s dissemination of Arabidopsis knowledge through bioinformatics and data initiatives is complemented by his leadership and service to the Arabidopsis community. In 2011 he was elected by the community to serve on the North American Arabidopsis Steering Committee (NAASC), including as President in 2014 . That year he served as chair of the NAASC conference committee that organized the 25th International Conference on Arabidopsis Research (ICAR). That ICAR marked 50 years since the first Arabidopsis meeting in Germany, and to mark this auspicious milestone, Nick led the writing of a seminal Arabidopsis article that included a citational network analysis of 54,000+ papers that mentioned Arabidopsis, described many of the important discoveries in plant biology that had been made using Arabidopsis, and highlighted how these discoveries have had an impact in crop species. Since 2014 Nick has played a leadership role in the Multinational Arabidopsis Steering Committee (MASC), on behalf of the global community, including founding it as a nonprofit organization, a status that enables MASC to have continuity. MASC was established in the early 1990s and continues to be a vital collaborative multinational vehicle that coordinates interactions and publishes yearly global summaries and highlights of Arabidopsis research and activities; these reports serve as snapshots of where the Arabidopsis community is presently, its past, and predictions for its future. These pieces are incredibly important for Arabidopsis researchers to argue why research in Arabidopsis is of paramount importance to national and international funders, and to indicate how research using Arabidopsis has translated to fundamental biological findings.
Finally, Dr. Provart is a leader in education, communication, and outreach, such as in the in the development of multiple open online courses that teach people, no matter their location, how to analyze bioinformatic data. All of these feature data utilizing Arabidopsis to some degree as a research organism to demonstrate how different methodologies work, thus exposing its students to studies involving Arabidopsis. Nick is a tireless ambassador for Arabidopsis science and has delivered over 150 invited seminars and courses, ranging from the Cold Spring Harbor Frontiers Techniques in Plant Science series to international symposia in Germany, Brazil, and Japan, translating complex network analyses and cyberinfrastructure advances into actionable insights. He regularly organizes hands-on workshops to train investigators, educators, and undergraduates in using these tools for real-world research and teaching. Nick’s outreach efforts extend beyond academia. He has played a crucial role in fostering community engagement through platforms like Twitter (now on Bluesky) and interactive online resources, making Arabidopsis knowledge widely accessible. His active participation in international collaborations reflects his commitment to ensuring that Arabidopsis research remains the key model for plant biology. His work integrating Arabidopsis datasets with other plant models has helped bridge gaps between research communities, facilitating knowledge transfer and expanding the impact of Arabidopsis findings beyond its own field. He has also authored or co-authored a number of well read and influential papers about the impact of Arabidopsis work, the importance or future of Arabidopsis bioinformatics resources, and related work, like the Plant Gene Atlas.
In short, as one supporter notes, “Nick’s impact on plant biology science, education, and communication has been truly transformative.”
Later Career Category: Dr. Anna Stepanova, North Carolina State University, USA
Quotes about Anna from her supporters:
Dr. Stepanova has written or contributed to several review articles that highlight the impact of Arabidopsis research on other crops and enhance participation in outreach in plant biology. These efforts ensure that Arabidopsis research continues to thrive in an ever-evolving scientific landscape. These reviews also serve as invaluable resources in justifying funding for Arabidopsis research in grant applications. By articulating the broader significance of Arabidopsis in plant science, Dr. Stepanova has strengthened the case for continued investment in this vital model system.
Anna designed a lab & lecture course in “Synthetic Biology” for upper-level undergraduate and graduate students & teaches it every year. The course is very labor-intensive & trains the students in every aspect of biotechnology using Arabidopsis as the “lab rat”. The students come from all scientific backgrounds (not just plants, but also microbes and animals). She is an amazing teacher who provides detailed information & protocols, spends all the time it takes to ensure every student understands and enjoys the course content and implications of this research. All the materials are also publicly available for other faculty to use for their courses.
Beyond scholarly contributions, Anna is an exceptional mentor and advocate for open science. Her efforts to promote data sharing, educational outreach, and public engagement reflect a deep dedication to the broader mission of plant science communication.
For 15 years Dr. Stepanova has run the bilingual “Plants4kids” outreach program to bring plant science to kids. She engages graduate students & postdocs for the hands-on activities, where kids learn everything about plants, especially Arabidopsis.
Dr. Stepanova has made outstanding contributions to the Arabidopsis research community by advancing the accessibility, communication, and integration of Arabidopsis knowledge in ways that have significantly impacted researchers, educators, students and young people. Dr. Stepanova is an outstanding scientist who commits a significant amount of time to teaching and outreach using Arabidopsis as a tool and is committed to dissemination of the critical role that Arabidopsis research plays in today’s scientific enterprise. One of her most remarkable initiatives is developing and leading the Plants4Kids program, which aims to inspire young students towards an interest in plant sciences. Plants4Kids (experiments) involves annual outreach events at the Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh, NC, where hundreds of people visit their booth each time. There, children are exposed to many interacting activities including building an Arabidopsis seedling necklace that they get to keep. Materials for this program are available in English and Spanish from the Alonso-Stepanova lab website which enhances access to many schools and communities. Moreover, under her leadership, lab members have provided over 130 demos to schools since 2010. Plants4Kids also promotes community engagement from local students and postdocs as their popular booth is served by volunteers from the entire department, not only from her lab. These efforts have significant impact in improving public perception of plant biology research in society, and more importantly, the impacts of a simple model such as Arabidopsis in research and innovation.
Dr. Stepanova has also demonstrated an unwavering commitment to making Arabidopsis research widely available and comprehensible to diverse audiences. Through her participation in the CATALYST program at NC State, her lab has mentored 9 high school students with disabilities in summer research activities. This program is one example where Arabidopsis remains a crucial model organism in biology due to its simple life cycle and growth requirements, which make it greatly accessible for short but meaningful research experiences. Anna leveraged an NSF CAREER award to organize and lead a training course for local high school teachers- Synthetic Biology & Recombinant DNA (SynBio)- where Arabidopsis is a core tool to expose teachers to current concepts, tools and applications in Genetics. Anna led the 30 hour summer teacher training workshops in summer 2022 and 2023, training 33 high school teachers via a combination of materials that she developed including daily lectures, hands-on labs and other interactive activities on DNA, cloning, genome editing, and agricultural biotechnology. As part of these summer workshops she maintains a small rental library of lab equipment and supplies for the trained teachers to use in their classrooms. She also engages in outreach training of the next generation through her Molecular Genetics course where she helps graduate students develop their own YouTube videos on a variety of molecular genetics topics to help make the science accessible to the general public. Some of the student videos have accumulated many thousands of views which serve as a good indication of their impact in the community. (Anna has engaged in many more outreach activities than can fit into this article!)
In addition to her individual and local community contributions, Dr. Stepanova has been an outstanding collaborator, fostering partnerships across institutions and research groups to enhance the dissemination of Arabidopsis knowledge. Her leadership in NAASC for the past 6 years has helped continue the preeminence of Arabidopsis as a critical research tool at the forefront of science. Anna has written or contributed to several review articles that highlight the impact of Arabidopsis research on other crops, develop a vision for Arabidopsis (and plant) research, and enhance participation in outreach in plant biology. Anna’s thoughtful and calm demeanor, and her careful and creative assessments and input make her an ideal colleague and collaborator. She is always generous with her time on behalf of the Arabidopsis community to help solve problems, develop action plans and then implement them. She is humble, preferring to work in the background and not trumpet her efforts and contributions, but the Arabidopsis community has benefitted immensely from her dedication and creativity for many years. Here are just a few of the many ways she supported the community during her tenure on NAASC: through her efforts to organize two International Conferences on Arabidopsis Research (ICAR), reviewing 100+ community session proposals, helping to secure conference support from federal grants, journals, and other sources to ensure early career participation, even stepping up to develop a session on a tight timeline when we realized there was a gap in scientific themes. She is so dedicated to supporting the community that at one point she was a member of almost every NAASC working groups (of ~8 total) and even volunteered to serve an extra year (a 6th) to ensure the success of ICAR 2024-San Diego and to help administer the inaugural NAASC Arabidopsis Community Awards (of course, she was an integral member of the working group that developed the awards in 2023.)
After 6 years of tirelessly supporting NAASC, while maintaining a successful research program, teaching, and conducting numerous outreach initiatives, Anna was (unsurprisingly) immediately recruited to join the MASC Board of Directors when she rotated off NAASC. Somehow, she also makes the time to be a strong mentor and advocate for people at all levels of the scientific endeavor; over the last 15 years she has served as a mentor to nearly 200 scientists (and aspiring scientists) including ~30 middle-school and high school students, ~75 undergraduate and post baccalaureate students, ~50 Master’s and Doctoral students, dozens of visiting scholars, research staff, and several faculty. While this may be her ‘official’ mentoring count, she is valued as a mentor by many colleagues (even if she doesn’t know it.)
As one of her supporters notes: “Anna relentlessly dedicates time and effort to Arabidopsis and disseminating knowledge way beyond her main -and very successful- research program; thus, this award is a well-deserved recognition.”
