John McDowell was recently appointed as the new editor-in-chief of Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions (MPMI). He will begin his three-year term in January 2016. McDowell is a professor in the Department of Plant Pathology, Physiology, and Weed Science at Virginia Tech and has been a member of the MPMI Editorial Board for 10 years. Most recently, he was a senior editor of MPMI.

McDowell’s current work includes functional and comparative genomics of oomycete plant pathogens, functional analysis of oomycete effector proteins, mechanisms through which pathogens extract nutrients from plant hosts, and translating pathogen genomics into new solutions for disease control.