Jerry Tuskan

Jerry Tuskan is the Program Lead for the Laboratory Science Program (LSP) at JGI and is Distinguished Scientist in the Plant Genomics Group at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. After receiving a Ph.D. at Texas A&M University in genetics, Dr. Tuskan joined the Plant Sciences faculty at the North Dakota State University in 1984. In 1990, Dr. Tuskan took the position of Woody Crop Leader within the Biofuels Feedstock Development Program for the U.S. DOE Biofuels program. His research interests included genetic advancement of Populus and other woody crops in the deployment of biomass cropping systems for energy. In 2004, he led the International Populus Genome Consortium in sequencing, assembling, and annotating the Populus genome. Dr. Tuskan has more than 76 publications in the areas of genetics and genomics of perennial plants, including 20 publications with nearly 300 citations that exclusively relate to biomass and bioenergy. Since 1990, Dr. Tuskan has received more than 17 grants totalling $18M. Jerry serves on several Biofuels Advisory Boards.