Rate My Professor Boris Vinatzer

Boris A. Vinatzer is a Professor in the School of Plant and Environmental Sciences at Virginia Tech, within the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. He received his B.S./M.S. in Agricultural Sciences in 1995 and Ph.D. in Molecular & Cellular Biotechnology in 2000 from the University of Bologna, Italy, followed by postdoctoral training in Microbial Genetics at the University of Chicago from 2000 to 2004. Vinatzer joined Virginia Tech in 2004 as Assistant Professor in the Department of Plant Pathology, Physiology, and Weed Science, where he progressed to Associate Professor in 2010 and Professor in 2016. He served as Interim Department Head from 2015 to 2018 before transitioning to his current position in the School of Plant and Environmental Sciences in 2018. Additionally, he holds roles as Program Director for the Genetics, Bioinformatics, and Computational Biology graduate program and Grants Coordinator for the Translational Plant Sciences Center at the Fralin Life Sciences Institute.

Vinatzer's research encompasses molecular plant-microbe interactions, molecular evolution and taxonomy of plant pathogenic bacteria, development of bioinformatics tools and protocols leveraging DNA sequencing for precise detection, classification, and identification of plant pathogens and biocontrol agents, and investigation of environmental microbes' roles in precipitation formation, including ice nucleation activity in bacteria like Lysinibacillus parviboronicapiens. He teaches undergraduate and graduate courses including PPWS 4114 Microbial Forensics and Biosecurity, PPWS 5054 Plant Pathogenic Agents, and PPWS 5454 Plant Disease Physiology. With over 75 peer-reviewed publications and book chapters, notable works include 'The life history of the plant pathogen Pseudomonas syringae is linked to the water cycle' (2008, The ISME Journal), 'A functional screen for the type III (Hrp) secretome of the plant pathogen Pseudomonas syringae' (2002, Science), and recent contributions such as 'Ice nucleation in a Gram-positive bacterium isolated from precipitation depends on a polyketide synthase and non-ribosomal peptide synthetase' (2022, The ISME Journal) and 'A survey of Xylella fastidiosa in the US state of Virginia' (2023, Phytopathology). His impact is evidenced by awards including the Virginia Tech College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Outstanding Graduate Student Mentor Award (2022), Excellence in Basic Research Award (2020), NSF Faculty Early Career Development Award (2008-2013), and Potomac Division of the American Phytopathological Society Distinguished Service Award (2017). Vinatzer chaired the 14th International Conference on Plant Pathogenic Bacteria in 2024 and contributes to projects like genomeRxiv for microbial genome databases.