UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Carolee Bull, professor of systematic bacteriology and plant pathology in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences, has been elected to the presidential lineage of the American Phytopathological Society (APS).
Bull will begin her new role as vice president in August, at the end of the society’s annual Plant Health meeting. She will then serve as president-elect in 2024-25 and president in 2025-26. Her leadership role will end in 2027 after serving one year as immediate past president.
“The American Phytopathological Society has provided me with leadership and mentorship training throughout my career,” Bull said. “I am looking forward to sharing what I have received by serving our society and our membership in a national leadership capacity.”
Previously, Bull has served in numerous roles in her field, including at APS as a councilor at large. She also has served the International Society for Plant Pathology and the International Committee on the Systematics of Prokaryotes. At Penn State, Bull served as the inaugural director of the Penn State Microbiome Center — now the Penn State One Health Microbiome Center — from 2017 to 2022 and as the head of the Department of Plant Pathology and Environmental Microbiology from 2015 to 2022.
“With passion and precision, Carolee is a natural leader who has time and again proven her ability to navigate and lead complex science and organizations,” said Seth Bordenstein, director of the One Health Microbiome Center and professor of biology and entomology. “Her election to the presidential leadership team of the American Phytopathological Society is an excellent recognition of these core attributes.”
APS has existed for more than a century as a community for scientists dedicated to the advancement of plant pathology, with members coming from academia, government, industry and private practice.