Rate My Professor Richard Dixon

Richard A. Dixon is the Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of North Texas, Denton, and Founding Director of the BioDiscovery Institute. He earned bachelor's and doctoral degrees in biochemistry and botany from the University of Oxford, UK, an M.A. in biochemistry from Oxford in 1976, a D.Phil. in botany focusing on phytoalexin production by plant tissue cultures from Oxford in 1976, and a Doctor of Science degree from Oxford in 2004. He completed postdoctoral training in plant biochemistry at the University of Cambridge, UK. Prior to joining UNT, Dixon served as Distinguished Professor, Samuel Roberts Noble Research Chair, Senior Vice President, and Founding Director of the Plant Biology Division at the Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation in Ardmore, Oklahoma, from 1988 to 2013. He holds adjunct professorships at Rice University, University of Texas at Austin, Washington State University, Oklahoma State University, and University of Oklahoma.

Dixon's research centers on the biochemistry, molecular biology, and metabolic engineering of plant natural product pathways, including flavonoids, isoflavones, condensed tannins, and terpenoids, with implications for agriculture, human health, and bioenergy. His work encompasses engineering lignocellulosic biomass for improved forage quality and bioenergy feedstocks, lignin modification for enhanced digestibility and biofuel production, and discovery of new biosynthetic enzymes. He has published over 530 papers and chapters, garnering more than 94,000 citations and an h-index of 147, ranking third globally in plant biology per Google Scholar. Key publications include "Enabling lignin valorization through integrated advances in plant biology and biorefining" (Annual Review of Plant Biology, 2024, with Puente-Urbina, Beckham, Román-Leshkov), "A century of plant secondary metabolism—from 'what?' to 'where, how, and why?'" (Plant Physiology, 2024, with Dickinson), "Developmental changes in lignin composition are driven by both monolignol supply and laccase specificity" (Science Advances, 2022, with Zhuo et al.), and "Substrate-specificity of LACCASE 8 facilitates polymerization of caffeyl alcohol for C-lignin biosynthesis" (Plant Cell, 2020, with Wang et al.). Dixon holds numerous patents, such as those for manipulating proanthocyanidin composition and lignin modification in plants. His accolades include membership in the US National Academy of Sciences (2007), Fellowship in the Royal Society (2018), AAAS Fellowship (2003), National Academy of Inventors Fellowship (2014), and American Society of Plant Biologists Fellowship (2018). He serves on the editorial boards of five international journals and was named one of the ten most cited authors in plant and animal sciences by the Institute for Scientific Information.