Peggy Ozias-Akins

Peggy Ozias-Akins is a Distinguished Professor at the University of Georgia known for her work on plant breeding, especially in peanuts. She was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2009.

Education and career Ozias-Akins received a B.S. in from Florida State University in 1975. She earned her Ph.D. in botany from the University of Florida in 1981.

In 1986 Ozias-Akins moved to the University of Georgia as a faculty member, and in 2017 she was named a distinguished research professor at the University of Georgia.

Research Ozias-Akin is known for her work using molecular tools to change how crop plants such as peanuts or millet are grown. Her early research examined how wheat plants and peanuts reproduce using somatic embryogenesis, a process where a plant is formed from a single cell, a somatic embryo. Her early work on peanuts sought to use genetic techniques to reduce a peanut plants susceptibility to diseases. She has used a species of grass, pearl millet, to examine how plant cells produce a seed that is an exact copy, a process known as apomixis. Ozias-Akin began research on genetically modified peanuts in 2009. She sought to eliminate allergens in peanuts, but ultimately determined that was not a viable path to reducing peanut allergies.

Selected publications

Awards and honors Ozias-Akins was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2009.