The Department of Plant Pathology has a strong research and teaching emphasis in genetically-controlled disease resistance, molecular genetics and genomics, control of diseases caused by biotic pathogens (fungi, viruses, nematodes and bacteria), wood deterioration, and in the physiology and molecular biology of plant-microbe interactions.

Research areas include, but are not limited to, genetics of disease resistance at the molecular, cellular, and whole plant levels, genomics and bioinformatics; plant disease management; microbial ecology; biological control; population genetics; plant virology; and air pollution and global climate change.