Caitilyn Allen (born 1957 in Göttingen, West Germany)[1] is an American plant pathologist, specializing in phytobacteriology (i.e., bacterial diseases of plants). She is an internationally recognized expert on bacterial wilt[2] and has received several awards for her work.[3]
Education and career
Caitilyn Allen grew up in the US Midwest.[2] She studied from 1975 to 1978 at Swarthmore College and then worked on a farm growing organic vegetables, but the venture was unprofitable.[3] She studied for the academic year 1980–1981 at the University of Maine at Orono, where she graduated with a B.S. in botany. In 1987 she graduated with a Ph.D. in plant pathology from the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.[2] Her Ph.D. thesis is entitled Evolution of a gene for pathogenicity; endo-pectate lyase.[4]
As a postdoc, Allen was from 1986 to 1988 a research associate in Lyon at the CNRS Laboratoire de génétique moléculaire microbienne. (She is fluent in French.)[3] From 1988 to 1992 she held a postdoc position at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison), where she began research on bacterial wilt. Subsequently, she pursued such studies for next three decades.[2] In 1992 she became a faculty member in UW-Madison's department of plant pathology. She began as an assistant professor, was promoted to associate professor, became a full professor, and is now the department's Ethel and O. N. Allen Professor.[3] (She is unrelated to Ethel and O. N. Allen.)[2][5]
Allen became in 1995 the founding director of UW-Madison's Women In Science and Engineering Residential Learning Community (called the WISE Dorm)[2] and for her directorship received in 2001 the Women Engineers Professional/Academic Network National Women In
Engineering Program Award.[3] She has received several teaching awards. In 2008 she received from the French government the Palmes Académiques for her contribution to French education and culture. In 2009 she was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.[3] In 2020 the American Society for Microbiology gave her the Alice C. Evans Award.[6]
Selected publications
Articles
Huang, Qi; Allen, Caitilyn (2000). "Polygalacturonases are required for rapid colonization and full virulence of Ralstonia solanacearum on tomato plants". Physiological and Molecular Plant Pathology. 57 (2): 77–83. doi:10.1006/pmpp.2000.0283.
^ abcdef"Caitilyn Allen, Curriculum Vitae"(PDF). Department of Plant Pathology, University of Wisconsin-Madison. September 2018. (with extensive publication list)
