Rate My Professor Rebekah Rampey

Rebekah A. Rampey serves as Professor and Department Chair of Biology at Harding University, where she has been a faculty member since 2005. She earned her Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Cell Biology from Rice University in 2004, working in Dr. Bonnie Bartel's plant hormone genetics laboratory. Rampey was promoted to full Professor in 2021 and appointed Chair of the Biology Department in 2018. Her research centers on auxins, phytohormones that regulate plant development through synthesis, degradation, transport, and conjugate metabolism. Collaborating with Dr. Bethany Zolman of the University of Missouri-St. Louis, Rampey employs genetic screens in Arabidopsis thaliana to study auxin-conjugate responsiveness and interactions with hormones like gibberellin. Notable projects include characterizing the J56 mutant via next-generation sequencing to identify mutations affecting auxin phenotypes, as well as analyzing quadruple mutants for auxin-gibberellin crosstalk. Undergraduate students participate in these investigations through courses like BIOL 3710L Molecular Genetics Laboratory, contributing to ongoing experiments on gene expression and mutant alleles.

Rampey's publications elucidate auxin homeostasis mechanisms, including 'Multiple Facets of Arabidopsis Seedling Development Require Indole-3-Butyric Acid-Derived Auxin' (Rampey et al., The Plant Cell, 2011), 'Compensatory Mutations in Predicted Metal Transporters Modulate Auxin Conjugate Responsiveness in Arabidopsis' (Rampey et al., G3: Genes|Genomes|Genetics, 2013), and 'Auxin Input Pathway Disruptions Are Mitigated by Changes in Auxin Biosynthetic Gene Expression in Arabidopsis' (Spiess et al., Plant Physiology, 2014). She advises numerous honors theses, such as those on Martian agriculture viability (Ross, 2025), KUA1-ILR3 interactions in hypocotyl elongation (McDonald, 2024), and melatonin-IAA conjugate hydrolysis (Gaskins, 2024). Awards include the Harding University Teacher Achievement Award (2016), Harold Alexander Academic Advising Award (2019), and George J. Schroepfer, Jr. Award for Outstanding Ph.D. Thesis (2005). Rampey teaches Genetics, Botany, and Molecular Genetics Laboratory, fostering hands-on research and mentoring future scientists in plant molecular biology.