Meet Our New Vegetable Pathologist

Hello, my name is Lina Quesada (pronounced Lena Kesada in case you were wondering). On March 1st of 2013 I joined the Department of Plant Pathology at North Carolina State University as an Assistant Professor and Extension Specialist for vegetable pathology. I am originally from Bogota, Colombia (not Columbia!) and came to the US in 2006 to work on late blight of potato at the Ohio State University.

Shortly after that I moved to Lansing, Michigan and started a PhD in Plant Pathology at Michigan State University working with Phytophthora capsici, an important pathogen of cucurbits and solanaceous crops. While working on my PhD I fell in love with the boy in the lab next door and married him on 2010, the same year I finished my PhD.

I stayed at MSU and did a postdoc working on cucurbit downy mildew and bacterial canker of tomato. After that I did another postdoc working on corn postharvest diseases caused by Fusarium, a soilborne pathogen that can also affect sweetpotatoes and vegetables. My husband and I moved to NC a few weeks ago and have really enjoyed this beautiful state and its kind people. I am very excited to be here and have the opportunity to work with the clinic and all of you during the next few years to address challenges you have with vegetable diseases. If you need to contact me my information can be found here.  You can follow me on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIN if you wish and I am in the process of making a lab website that will be posted to the link I just provided to quickly disseminate any findings or materials produced by my program.