Diana Ruggiero is PhD student in the Department of Botany and Plant Pathology at Oregon State University. She is researching the genetics of plant development and is using both molecular and computational approaches. Her adviser is Dr. Samuel Leiboff.
Before starting graduate school, Diana worked for several years doing ecological restoration, landscaping, and trail work in the Pacific Northwest. She is an AmeriCorps alumna and has a B.A. in Computer Science from Bard College.
Ms. Ruggiero represented the ARCS Foundation as a supported graduate scholar of the Oregon Chapter.
You can contact her at either:
ruggiedi@oregonstate.edu
druggiero@protonmail.com
Education
Oregon State University, College of Agricultural Sciences | Corvallis, OR
PhD in Botany and Plant Pathology (2020 - present)
Bard College | Annandale-on-Hudson, NY
Publications
O'Hara, K., Burke, K.,
Ruggiero, D., and Anderson, S. "Linking Language & Thinking with Code: Computing within a Writing-Intensive Introduction to the Liberal Arts." ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (ITiCSE). July 2017.
[doi.org/10.1145/3059009.3059018]
Invited Talks
(Lightning Talk), "Quantitative genetics and high-throughput phenotyping of maize leaf vascular traits." 65th Annual Maize Genetics Meeting, Development Premeeting. St. Louis, MO. March 2023
(Podcast Interview)
Genome Insider S3 Episode 2: Better Crops With a Pointillist Approach to Plant Genomics. DOE Joint Genome Institute. August 2022
(Short Talk) "Combinatorial barcoding for single-nucleus sequencing of developing maize leaf primordia." Plant Biology 2022, American Society of Plant Biologists. Portland, OR. July 2022
(Lightning Talk), "Single-cell genomics and high-throughput phenotyping for determining the quantitative genetics of maize leaf vascular development." 64th Annual Maize Genetics Meeting. St. Louis, MO. March 2022
Poster Presentations
GRC: Single-Cell Approaches in Plant Biology. Ventura, CA. July 2023
ASPB Western Section Meeting. Tacoma, WA. April 2023
65th Annual Maize Genetics Meeting. St. Louis, MO. March 2023
2022 Plant Cell Atlas Symposium. Virtual. December 2022
ARCS Oregon Annual Scholar Event. Portland, OR. October 2022
Plant Biology 2022, American Society of Plant Biologists. Portland, OR. July 2022
64th Annual Maize Genetics Meeting. St. Louis, MO. March 2022
63rd Annual Maize Genetics Meeting. Virtual. March 2021
Awards and Scholarships
- AgAID AgAthon Hackathon 2023 Winner: Labor Challenge, 2nd Place - AgAID Institute
Team of three placed 2nd in multi-university hackathon challenge involving detection of apples in agricultural image dataset, cash prize
- ARCS Scholar Award, 2020-2023 - ARCS Foundation, Oregon Chapter
Support for early-career researchers of U.S. citizenship pursuing doctoral degrees in science, technology, engineering, medicine, or mathematics
- Provost Scholarship, 2020 - Oregon State University
Awarded to select newly admitted graduate students
- John W. Boylan Scholarship in Science & Medicine, 2015 - Bard College
Given to a premedicine or science major who maintains an interest in literature or music
Teaching
Oregon State University, Graduate TA:
BOT 101: Botany: A Human Concern - Introductory Botany for Non-Majors (In-Person)
BI 204: Introductory Biology I (Virtual)
BI 205: Introductory Biology II (Virtual)
Bard College, Undergraduate TA:
CS 143: Object-Oriented Programming with Robots (In-Person)
CS 117: Interactive Systems (In-Person)
Outreach and Leadership
- Genetics and Genomics STEM Summer Camp Instructor, 2022, 2023 - OSU Department of Botany and Plant Pathology
- Graduate Student Association Officer (Webmaster), 2021-2022 - OSU Department of Botany and Plant Pathology
Current Research Projects
My research concerns the genetic pathways involved in the development of veins and vascular patterning in the leaves of Zea mays. Some of the approaches I am using include single-cell RNA sequencing of leaves and a GWAS (Genome-Wide Association Study) of vein phenotypes over a large panel of around 800 different maize lines. I am particularly interested in vascular traits which differ between C3 and C4 plants.
I am interested in using computational approaches within plant science; as such I am developing an automated phenotyping tool using neural nets to facilitate my GWAS data collection. I am also exploring computational models of genetic regulatory networks and plant morphogenesis.
More on all this coming soon!