Sarah Wyatt

Sarah Wyatt is an American, plant molecular biologist. She is a professor in the Department of Environmental and Plant Biology at Ohio University, as well as director of the Ohio University Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Molecular and Cellular Biology. Wyatt's research interests include molecular biology, genomics, and signaling events. She is considered one of the world's experts on gravitational signaling in plants, and some of her recent research includes an experiment on board the International Space Station (ISS).

Education and career Sarah Wyatt was born in 1958 and raised in Mayfield, Kentucky. She received her B.S. in Cognition and Development in 1980 and a B.S. in biology in 1984 from the University of Kentucky. In 1991, she received her M.S. in Plant Pathology, also from the University of Kentucky. She went on to attend Purdue University and in 1995 received her Ph.D. from the Interdisciplinary Plant Physiology Program. Other projects in the Wyatt lab involve the shift between chasmogamous (open) and cleistogamous (closed) flowers in Viola pubescens and genetic fingerprints indicating gene expression and relationships during evolution of plant species.

NASA experience and ISS experiment Following her Ph.D., Wyatt became a Research Associate for the NASA Specialized Center of Research and Training in the Department of Botany at North Carolina State University. She held that position from 1996 to 2000, after which she began her teaching career at Ohio University in the Department of Environmental and Plant Biology. -20 (BRIC-20), was to germinate Arabidopsis thaliana seedlings in space and study their transcriptomic and proteomic responses to microgravity. was sent into orbit, placing a Dragon cargo capsule with the BRIC-20 experiment in path to the ISS Harmony module. and under review (see selected publications) and may provide invaluable insight into how plants cope in a microgravity environment, subsequently enhancing efforts to use plants for sources of food and oxygen during future spaceflight missions. - Omics Open Science Initiative at the NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California.

Service and outreach Through her academic career, Wyatt has presented numerous talks, demonstrations, and workshops reaching approximately 2,100 sixth-twelfth grade students, 1,000 elementary aged students, and 80 adults. Wyatt has been the Organizing Committee Chair and a presenter for AAUW's Tech Savvy program in Athens, Ohio since 2014. Tech Savvy is a daylong STEM career conference for middle school girls, aimed at introducing and attracting them to the STEM fields through hands-on activities. Wyatt has been a voluntary member of the Plant Science Definition Team through NASA since August 2016, and has sat on numerous grant panels including those through NASA, the National Science Foundation (NSF), the United States Department of Agriculture, European Space Agency, and the American Society of Plant Biologists (ASPB). She has served as a manuscript reviewer and on the editorial boards for over 15 scientific journals such as the American Journal of Botany, Plant Cell, and Plant Physiology. Wyatt is currently the Education Committee Chair for ASPB and holds this position through 2019.

Awards and recognition Faculty Fellowship Leave, GeneLab - Omics Open Science Initiative NASA Ames Research Center, Mountain View, CA Excellence in Education Award, American Society of Plant Biologist, 2017 Presidential Research Scholar, Ohio University, 2016 Presidential Teaching Award, Ohio University, 2014-2017 Outstanding Faculty Leadership and Service Award, Ohio University, College of Arts & Sciences 2013–14 Ann Campbell Brown Service Award, Ohio University, 2011 Presidential Teaching Award, Ohio University, 2007-2010 Dean's Outstanding Teacher Award, College of Arts & Sciences, Ohio University, 2004

Honors Phi Beta Kappa Sigma Xi, Scientific Research Honor Society Gamma Sigma Delta, Honor Society of Agriculture

Selected publications Basu P, Kruse CPS, Luesse DR, Wyatt SE (in review) Growth in the Biological Research in Canisters (BRIC) flight hardware results in alterations to the transcriptome and proteome. Advances in Space Research.

Cook CA, Tucker A, Shen K, Wyatt SE (2015) Microarray identifies transcription factors potentially involved in gravitropic signal transduction. Gravitational and Space Research 3:18-27.