Sushma Naithani

Biography

Dr. Sushma Naithani has an M.S. in Biotechnology and a Ph.D. in Botany. In 1998, she emigrated from India to the USA and worked as a Postdoc at Iowa State University and later at Cornell University. At present, Naithani is an Associate Professor Senior Research in the Department of Botany and Plant Pathology at Oregon State University, USA. Her research focuses on understanding information flow in living systems and how evolution shapes this flow. Naithani employs cutting-edge systems-level pathway modeling approach, supported by meticulous biocuration, gene-orthology-based predictions, and thorough analysis of omics data. She serves as the lead biocurator for the Plant Reactome knowledgebase (https://plantreactome.gramene.org). She also developed species-specific metabolic networks for grapevine (VitisCyc) and strawberry (FragariaCyc), available free-of-cost to support the plant research community (accessible at http://pathways.cgrb.oregonstate.edu/metabolic.html).

Naithani collaborates with various scientists on a range of plant genomics and transcriptomics research projects (for selected publications see https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=sushma+naithani and for a full list, see https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7819-4552). In addition to her research contributions, Dr. Naithani plays a pivotal role in standardizing genomic data curation and annotation. She is committed to making data FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Reusable, and Interoperable) and is a Steering Committee member for the AgBioData consortium (since 2022) and a NASA Space Biology working group member (also since 2022). Her past contributions include committee roles with the International Society for Biocuration (from 2021 to 2023) and the Grape Information System (from 2015 to 2020).

Naithani serves as an Editor and peer-reviewer for scientific journals. Notably, she held the position of the Editor-in-chief of the Current Plant Biology journal from 2017-2023. Currently, she is an Associate Editor of Frontiers in Plant Science, Editor of PeerJ Life and Environment, Editorial Board member of the Current Plant Biology, and Editorial Board member of Plants (Basel) for Plant Genetics, Genomics and Biotechnology section.

Beyond her academic pursuits, Dr. Naithani is deeply passionate about science communication and enhancing public scientific literacy. She authored an Open Textbook titled "History and Science of Cultivated Plants" (published by Oregon State University Open Educational Resources in 2021), which is accessible at https://open.oregonstate.education/cultivatedplants. Additionally, she authored a popular science book on the history of Agriculture in the Hindi language, published by the National Book Trust of India in 2020 (ISBN: 978-81-237-9265-1).