Dr. James Jurgenson has received his PhD in University of Arizona during the period of 1980 currently, he is working as Professor in University of Northern Iowa 

 My research is divided into three separate but complimentary areas: 1. Genetics of the plant pathogenic fungus Fusarium graminearum (Gibberella zeae). This organism is the causative agent of scab (head blight) of wheat in the United States and other countries. I have been developing genetic maps using Amplified Fragment Length polymorphism analysis to generate mendelianly inherited genetic markers. My genetic maps have been used to align the Genomic sequence recently produced by the Broad institute. 2. He is also studying the population genetics of more than 20 species of native plants of the tall grass prairie. This effort is designed to assess the genetic diversity of native species in existing remnants of the prairie that exist in Iowa. 3. He is also interested in the ability of plants to resist infection by microorganisms. They are isolating disease resistant gene analogues from the genomes of native plant species. It is expected that these could be used in agronomic crops as genetic protection to disease organism such as Fusarium graminearum.