Born and raised in Bristol, CT, Alex received his B.S. in Natural Resource Sciences (Turf Management concentration) at the University of Maryland in 2006. He earned a M.S. in Agronomy under the direction of Dr. John Kaminski at the University of Connecticut, where his research focused on various management practices for dollar spot disease and resistance to fungicides of Sclerotinia homoeocarpa, the causal agent of dollar spot. Upon completion of his M.S. in December 2008, Alex began pursuit of a Ph.D. in Plant Pathology at North Carolina State University in Raleigh under the advisement of Drs. Lane Tredway and Ignazio Carbone. At N.C. State, Alex’s dissertation research is focused on understanding the worldwide population biology of S.
homoeocarpa
. Specifically, he is characterizing the genetic basis of sexuality in the pathogen and developing microsatellites as markers. Alex is using these tools to understand the evolutionary forces that are shaping diversity of S. homoeocarpa from different hosts and environments worldwide.