"Sam holds a joint appointment as Member of the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center and as the E. Desmond Lee Endowed Professor at the University of Missouri in St. Louis, Department of Biology. He received his Ph.D. from University of Kentucky, M.S. from Ohio State University, and B.S. from Huazhong Agricultural University. He completed postdoctoral training at Louisiana State University. Sam joined Kansas State University as an assistant professor in the Department of Biochemistry in 1991. He became Professor in 2000 and served as Founding Director of the Kansas Lipidomics Research Center until joining the Danforth Center in 2004. Awards: Fellow of American Association for the Advancement of Science (2005) Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Research and Creativity (2014) Inventor of the Year Award, UM-St. Louis (2013)"

" Sam’s research aims to discover and understand the signaling and regulatory processes that mediate plant stress response and oil production. He is interested in translating knowledge gained from this work to improve plant oil and biomass production."