By Mary Jane Rogers | Bond LSC
“#IAmScience because I plan to use my career to help develop agricultural innovations for the hard-working farmer.”
Most of Shannon King’s support system – her friends, grandparents, and boyfriend – are all farmers. They’re her inspiration and part of the reason her career goal is to use science to help farmers.
She’s currently a Ph.D candidate in the Biochemistry department at MU and works in Scott Peck’s lab at Bond Life Sciences Center. She’s also part of a $4.2 million grant the MU Interdisciplinary Plant Group received to fund crop research.
“I went into science because I wanted to help farmers,” King said. “With this grant, I get to go out into the field every day and be a ‘fake farmer,’ as I call it. And then I get to go into the lab and look at the science of it all. This grant gives me an everyday reminder of whom I get to help with my research and a whole new appreciation for science.”
The official name of the project is “Physiological Genomics of Maize Nodal Root Growth under Drought.” Its goal is to develop drought-tolerant corn varieties that make efficient use of available water. The project is interdisciplinary in nature and includes individuals from MU’s College of Arts and Science, School of Medicine, College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources, and School of Journalism. King said part of the fun of this grant is working with her team when things go wrong.
“None of us are engineers, but we’ve been doing a lot of re-engineering of our system to make things run smoothly. It’s rewarding to have all of us come together and try and make this project work.”