Rita Varagona Elected to Executive Committee

Rita Varagona

Marguerite (Rita) Varagona joined the ASPB Executive Committee as an elected member on October 1.

Rita earned a BA degree in botany in 1980 and an MS degree in botany in 1983 from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She obtained a PhD in botany in 1989 from the University of Georgia, Athens. From 1989 to 1993, she was a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Energy Plant Research laboratory at Michigan State University. She was assistant professor from 1993 to 1998 in the biology department at New Mexico State University. Since 1998, Rita has been with the Monsanto Company. She served as genomics leader from 1998 to 1999, Quality Traits Project/Platform lead from 2000 to 2006, and Vector Strategy lead from 2006 to present.

Rita’s research interests are in metabolic engineering (amino acids and protein), protein targeting, gene expression, post-transcriptional processes, functional genomics, plant transposons, and germination physiology.

Her professional activities and awards are many. She is a Dupont Fellow for Excellence in Graduate Research UGA (1987, 1989). Her NMSU lab is funded by USDA–ARS and NIH–MBRS. She graduated three MS students and mentored 18 undergraduates. Rita has served on grant review panels for the USDA and DOE. She has reviewed papers for Plant Physiology and Plant Molecular Biology. In 2005, she actively participated as lead in Diversity and Recruiting teams/efforts for Monsanto Biotechnology. From 2004 to 2006, Rita sponsored undergraduate summer interns. She was invited speaker for career workshops and discussions at several universities. She was mentor for (Monsanto) Technology Mentoring Program in 2005, 2006, and 2008.

Rita has been a member of ASPB since 1982. She participated in conferences through her own or her colleagues’ presentations in her lab/teams. In 1998, she chaired a session on protein targeting. Rita is looking forward to serving the plant biology community.