Sarah E. Wyatt
Ohio University
For distinguished contributions in research, teaching, and outreach and for her leadership of the Ohio University Chapter and commitment to science literacy through Science Café
Quote
“To me, Sigma Xi represents passion for science. As a first-generation college student, being inducted into Sigma Xi as a graduate student was an honor, but what it gave me was more than an honor. It made me part of a larger community of people passionate about science.”
Biography
Sarah Wyatt, PhD, is a currently a professor at Ohio University and director of the interdisciplinary graduate program in molecular and cellular biology. Her research program focuses on the molecular mechanisms of signal transduction during a plant’s response to altered gravity. She has been funded by both NASA and the National Science Foundation for ground-based and spaceflight research on gravitropic signaling in plants.
She and her students work predominantly on gene discovery in Arabidopsis, a genetic model for plants, using mutant analysis, genomics/transcriptomics and proteomics.
Wyatt has also served as a “rotating” program officer for the Integrated Organismal Systems cluster and the Molecular and Cellular Biology cluster of the National Science Foundation and has served on numerous grant panels for NSF, USDA, and NASA.
Her teaching includes graduate and undergraduate courses in scientific writing and courses in molecular and cell biology. Wyatt has been the vice-president and president of the Ohio University Chapter of Sigma Xi where she started the university-wide Science Café, a biweekly discussion of research led by STEM faculty across campus, currently in its 12th year, and is active in university service and STEM outreach to the community.