Carl Bernacchi, Doctorate: Plant Biochemistry

Carl Bernacchi is the Deputy Director of Phenotyping for the Realizing Increased Photosynthetic Efficiency (RIPE) Project. He is a Research Plant Physiologist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS) with the Global Change and Photosynthesis Research Unit and an adjunct professor of crop sciences at the University of Illinois. Carl runs a research group at Illinois that attempts to understand the impacts of climatic change on Midwest crop species and climate and land-use changes on biogeochemical cycles. His research studies the feedback between vegetation and climate in a changing environment using in-field experiments and modeling from leaf- to ecosystem scales. This work addresses many issues related to global change, including rising carbon dioxide, rising tropospheric ozone, increasing temperatures, drought, and land-use change. Carl earned his master’s degree at Bradley University and went on to earn his doctorate at the University of Illinois. His work is widely published in journals that include Plant Cell & Environment, Plant Science, and Plant Physiology.