Lori Adams grew up in a small, rural town in Illinois (pop. 800) spending summers detasseling corn. After graduating high school (with a class of 34 of students), Lori went on to earn a BS in Crop Science from the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana.  Lori went on to pursue graduate work at Texas A&M in College Station, TX where she earned a PhD in Genetics. For her graduate thesis, Lori studied molecular aspects of the ethylene signal transduction pathway during fruit ripening with Dr. Jim Giovannoni. She completed a short post-doctoral experience as a research scientist at the Boyce Thompson Institute in Ithaca, NY and then a longer post-doctoral experience with the Department of Plant Pathology at University of Wisconsin-Madison in the laboratory of Dr. Andrew Bent where she researched how plants defend themselves against pathogen attacks. At the University of Iowa (UI), Lori directs several undergraduate research programs and is the instructor-designer for several student scientist development courses. In her free time, Lori enjoys spending time with her three kids, gardening and walking her dogs, Teddy and Sadie.