Research Professor Who Investigates Understudied Crop Roots Promoted to Associate Professor
Lorenzo Rossi understands the support system necessary to sustain a prize crop and explore other prospects.
University of Florida officials recognized Rossi’s precision planning and innovational research initiatives to confront the most serious citrus disease worldwide and advance alternative crops into diversification models with a promotion. Citrus greening, a disease that has impacted the crop in all the world’s production regions, is the highest priority in Rossi’s research laboratory at the University of Florida’s Indian River Research and Education Center in Fort Pierce. The center is part of UF’s statewide Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS).
Rossi’s promotion to associate professor this month reveals his robust research program and talents to empower graduate students and form international collaborative work teams.
Dr. Rossi achieved early tenure with rigorous pursuit,” said Mark Kistler, director of the UF/IFAS Indian River Research and Education Center and Rossi’s immediate supervisor. “Dr. Rossi understands our local growers’ needs and pursues solutions to keep them in business with relentless pursuit.”