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About Us
The Department of Botany and Plant Sciences encompasses all areas of scholarship involving plant science. This includes undergraduate and graduate instruction and mentorship, fundamental and applied research, and dissemination of research-based information and technologies beyond the academic community.
As one of the largest academic departments at UCR, the Department of Botany and Plant Sciences participates in two bachelor's degree programs and offers a master's degree program in Plant Biology with two tracks, Botany or Plant Science, and Ph.D. programs in Plant Biology and Plant Genetics. The department has strong programs in basic plant cell biology, responses of plants to environmental stresses, plant ecology, genetics, genomics, and evolution. The department houses the Center for Plant Cell Biology, which is the Nation's first Research Center devoted exclusively to Plant Cell Biology.
These strengths in basic research complement applied research programs that use the traditional tools of botany and the new technologies of genomics to meet the evolving needs of California's $27 billion agricultural industry in addressing the challenges, climate change and new pest and disease by developing new varieties and crop management strategies. Cooperative Extension specialists serve as the bridges between discoveries made in the department's laboratories and greenhouses and growers who will put the new knowledge to work for such commodities as avocado, citrus, wheat, vegetable crops, turfgrass, and ornamental and urban landscape plants.
Administration Offices
Location: Batchelor Hall, 2nd Floor
Hours: 8:00 am - 12:00 pm; 1:00 pm - 5:00 pm
Phone: (951) 827-4619
Fax: (951) 827-4437
E-mail: bpschair@ucr.edu
Map: Campus Map (Batchelor Hall is #501)
Directions: Link to directions
Headline News
UC Riverside Botanist adds credibility to plants in James Cameron's "Avatar"
Jodie Holt provided botanical information for the movie and game products
(November 24, 2009)
Jodie Holt is a professor of plant physiology and the chair of the Department of Botany and Plant Sciences at UC Riverside. Photo credit: UCR Strategic Communications.
RIVERSIDE, Calif. – A movie like James Cameron’s Avatar, which opens worldwide Dec. 18 and “takes us to a spectacular world beyond imagination,” pays close attention to details in creating a futuristic alien world. Light-years away from Earth in Cameron’s Avatar-world is the lush moon Pandora, whose atmosphere, though toxic to humans, supports vegetation.
To depict the vegetation accurately, the filmmakers consulted botanist Jodie Holt of the University of California, Riverside. For two years Holt served as a consultant and expert on Pandora’s vegetation and provided textual details for the game products that the film will launch. She also gave pointers to actress Sigourney Weaver, who plays a botanist in the film.