UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — David Eissenstat, professor of woody plant physiology in the Department of Ecosystem Science and Management, College of Agricultural Sciences, Penn State, has been elected as a Fellow of the Ecological Society of America.
Fellows are members of the society who have made outstanding contributions to the ecological sciences. Eissenstat was recognized for "major contributions toward understanding belowground processes and interactions among plants, microbes, environmental factors and agricultural practices."
Eissenstat is an ecologist with expertise in belowground and plant physiological ecology. His research includes root traits that can be used to scale belowground processes, how climate change affects root and mycorrhizal fungal processes, root biology and physiology, and agricultural practices that influence belowground processes in fruit crops such as apples and grapes. He has advised 23 graduate students and 13 postdoctoral fellows. He has 139 research publications over his career.
Eissenstat's previous awards and honors include Visiting Professorship for Senior Visiting Scientists at the Chinese Academy of Sciences; Howard Taylor Memorial Award from the Soil Science Society of America; Institute of Advanced Studies Senior Fellow, University of Bologna, Italy; Edward D. Bellis Award in Ecology, from Penn State (recognizes faculty contribution to the Ecology program); Tansley Lecture, New Phytologist Trust, York, England; and National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship, Industrialized Countries Exchange Program, Bristol, England.
He has been the chair of Penn State’s Intercollege Graduate Degree Program in Ecology since 2007.
Eissenstat earned his doctoral degree in range ecology at Utah State University in 1987, his master’s degree in range science at the University of Idaho in 1980, and his bachelor’s degree in agriculture at Cornell University in 1978.