Rate My Professor Magdalena Bezanilla

Magdalena Bezanilla serves as Chair of the Department of Biological Sciences, Ernest Everett Just 1907 Professor of Biological Sciences, and Professor in the Molecular and Cellular Biology Graduate Program at Dartmouth College. She earned a B.S. from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a Ph.D. in biochemistry, cellular and molecular biology from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 2000. Prior to joining Dartmouth in 2017, she held the position of Associate Professor of Biology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where she established her independent research program as an assistant professor and received early career recognition.

Bezanilla's laboratory investigates the molecular underpinnings of plant cell growth and shape determination, focusing on how regulators of the cytoskeleton—such as actin and microtubules—and membrane trafficking encode geometric information for extracellular matrix patterning. Employing the moss Physcomitrium patens as a model system, which benefits from efficient homologous recombination capabilities that her group has pioneered, her team uses high-resolution live-cell imaging and CRISPR-mediated genome editing to dissect these processes. Her work has significantly advanced moss as a model for studying plant cell polarity, tip growth, and morphogenesis, with implications for understanding cellular patterning across eukaryotes. Bezanilla's distinguished contributions have been honored with the David and Lucile Packard Fellowship in 2007, election as a Fellow of the American Society of Plant Biologists in 2023, and as an AAAS Fellow in 2026. She serves as a Reviewing Editor for The Plant Cell and has secured funding from the National Science Foundation, the Andrew Mellon Foundation, and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. Key publications include "An ancient Sec10–formin fusion provides insights into actin-mediated multicellular evolution" (Journal of Cell Biology, 2018) and "In vivo analysis of formin dynamics reveals functional class specific behavior during cytokinesis" (Journal of Cell Science, 2021).