Cheyenne Morris

PhD Candidate, Plant Disease Team

“I have always been fascinated by biology. My dad got me interested in nature; doing yard walks with him, looking at the trees and how they change. I’ve always been fascinated by it. But it was in college that I took a plant physiology class and started learning how plants are able to adapt. Over time, the fact that they have been able to adapt and withstand challenges is so fascinating to me.”  

In particular, Cheyenne Morris studies how heat stress impacts powdery mildew susceptibility.  

“I think the plant immune response is so cool. Pathogens and plants are constantly in this battle, an arms race to overcome each other through evolutionary adaptations. ‘I am going to overcome you.’ ‘Yeah? Well, I'm going to one-up you!’ ‘Well, I've evolved to overcome that now!’ ‘Yeah, well...so have I!’ I am fascinated by the whole process and want to see how heat stress maybe impedes it. I wonder, do plants become more susceptible to fungal pathogens because that process is broken down by heat?” 

Cheyenne is passionate about plant biology which drives her to continue her studies, even when the work piles up. 

“It’s always important to remember your why when you start to feel a little burnt out. I often think about this: in this rapidly changing world, especially with all of the frightening projections that we have, I wonder how plants are keeping up? Are they keeping up at all? What can we learn from the ones that have kept up? And how can we preserve future generations of plants and preserve future generations of humanity, too? That can start to feel a little existential, but it does motivate me – there is so much we still do not know. We are constantly learning from plants and that keeps me going, trying to preserve what we currently have. On a personal level, if a plant can deal with all this, so can I. I can do it, too.”