Keiko Torii

is a Japanese plant scientist and academic teaching at the University of Texas at Austin as of September 2019. She was elected to the US National Academy of Sciences in 2024.

Research Torii researches stem cell maintenance and the cell-to-cell communication required to correctly pattern tissue during development, focusing on stomatal development as a model. Her work on cell-to-cell communication has also focused on the mechanisms that determine organ size and shape in plants. Her achievements include discoveries of key signaling ligands, receptor kinase signaling pathways, and master regulatory transcription factors that specify stomatal patterning and differentiation. She also obtained a PhD (1993) from the University of Tsukuba, researching seed development in carrots.

Career She became a tenure-track Assistant Professor at the Department of Biology (formerly Botany), University of Washington in 1999 and Associate Professor in 2005. Then, in 2009, she was promoted to Full Professor at Department of Biology with an affiliate faculty position at the Institute of Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine, University of Washington. She was also a PRESTO researcher, Japan Science and Technology Agency, Japan (2009–2012). In 2011, she received the title of College of Arts and Sciences Endowed Distinguished Professor of Biology, University of Washington (2011-2019), and has also been an Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (2011–present).

She has provided extensive service on editorial and advisory boards and in editorial roles for journals, including Plant Physiology and as Editor-in-chief of The Arabidopsis Book. 2012 – Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) 2015 – Saruhashi Prize 2021 – Asahi Prize 2024 - Elected International Member of the US National Academy of Sciences

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