Four new faculty members have joined NDSU’s plant sciences department. They are Alan Zuk, Greta Gramig, Kevin McPhee and Penny Kianian.

Zuk, assistant professor, is the newest member of the Sports and Urban Turfgrass Management team with an 80 percent teaching and 20 percent research appointment. He will teach several courses including turfgrass management; landscape bidding and contracting; turfgrass science, ecology and management; horticulture therapy; and a senior seminar. His research projects will focus on ornamental grasses and low input turfgrass management.

Zuk is a Kansas native and earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in horticulture from Kansas State University. He then managed the turfgrass research farm for the Department of Horticulture at KSU for 10 years while working on a doctorate in turfgrass science. Prior to coming to NDSU, Zuk was the chair of the horticulture department at Nebraska College of Technical Agriculture in Curtis, Neb.

Greta Gramig joined the weed science program as an assistant professor in weed biology and ecology. She has an 80 percent research and 20 percent teaching position. She will teach courses in weed identification and weed biology and ecology. Her research interests include characterizing and modeling environmental effects on weed competitive ability and weed response to management tactics.

Gramig is originally from Kingsport, Tenn., but has spent a lot of time in Bozeman, Mont., where she earned a bachelor’s degree in plant science at Montana State University. While at MSU, Gramig worked for an extension weed scientist and became interested in the study of weeds and their growth patterns. She earned a master’s degree and doctorate in agronomy at the University of Wisconsin, where she focused on the ecophysiology of crop-weed competition for light.

Before coming to NDSU, she was a postdoctoral scientist at the United States Department of Agriculture Research Service North Central Soil Conservation Research Lab in Morris, Minn.

McPhee comes to NDSU from the United States Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service Grain Legume Genetics and Physiology Research Unit in Pullman, Wash., where he spent 10 years as a research geneticist.

McPhee attended the University of Wyoming where he earned a bachelor’s degree in agronomy. He then moved to Moscow, Idaho, where he earned a doctorate in agronomy at the University of Idaho in 1995.

His research program will include germplasm enhancement and variety development for pulse crops pea, lentil and chickpea. The objectives of his research program include the genetics of disease resistance, lodging resistance and seed quality.

McPhee is president of the North American Pulse Improvement Association and the editor of Pisum Genetics. His appointment is 90 percent research, and he will teach a course in crop breeding and production.

Kianian is an assistant professor of plant sciences and will be responsible for teaching the undergraduate genetics laboratories course. She is responsible for the supervision and coordination of graduate assistants involved in teaching the course. Her research interests include improving crops using molecular genetic approaches and developing improved teaching methods in genetics for undergraduate students.

Kianian earned a bachelor’s degree from the Department of Plant Genetics and Agronomy at the University of Minnesota, and a master’s degree from the Department of Agronomy at Purdue University. She worked for several years as a research scientist at NDSU before returning to graduate school to earn a doctorate in applied plant sciences from the University of Minnesota in 2007. After completing her doctorate, she was employed at Minnesota State University Moorhead as a genetics instructor. Kianian is a native of Minnesota, growing up in the St. Paul area.