Rate My Professor Shahid Mukhtar

Shahid M. Mukhtar is a Professor in the Department of Genetics and Biochemistry at Clemson University, joining as a tenured full professor in July 2024. Previously, he advanced through the faculty ranks at the University of Alabama at Birmingham over 14 years, from research assistant professor in 2010 to full professor. He earned his Ph.D. in Genetics from the Max-Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research and the University of Cologne, Germany, in 2005, with research on Arabidopsis transcriptional regulatory networks. His postdoctoral training from 2006 to 2010 was in Jeff Dangl's laboratory at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, focusing on Arabidopsis-pathogen protein-protein interactions. This work produced landmark publications, including the first large-scale Arabidopsis-pathogen interactome in Science (2011) and contributions to the Arabidopsis interactome map, G-protein interactions, and sequencing of Pseudomonas syringae strains.

Dr. Mukhtar's research employs genomics, multi-omics, systems biology, network science, computational biology, single-cell/nuclei sequencing, and spatial transcriptomics such as Stereo-seq to study non-canonical genetic elements—including ORFan genes, microproteins, extrachromosomal circular DNA, novel transcribed regions, and upstream open reading frames—in systems like Arabidopsis, soybean, duckweed, and Drosophila. He leads a $6 million NSF grant investigating soybean responses to heat and drought and serves as Director of the Multinational Arabidopsis Steering Committee (MASC), chairing its Plant Immunity subcommittee since involving 34 countries. Additional roles include leadership in the Southern Section of the American Society of Plant Biologists and organizing workshops on systems biology, machine learning, and data science at Plant & Animal Genome conferences. He has edited books Modeling Transcriptional Regulation (2021) and Protein-Protein Interaction (2023), holds editorial positions with Communications Biology, Scientific Reports, and Frontiers in Oncology, and received the 2021 President’s Award for Excellence in Teaching, 2021 CAS Dean’s Award for Excellence in Teaching, and 2023 Odessa Woolfolk Community Service Award.