Rupesh Kariyat, an Indian American associate professor of crop entomology with the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station at University of Arkansas, has been named Clyde H. Sites Endowed Professor in International Crop Physiology.
Kariyat, a Kerala native, who joined the experiment station, the research arm of the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture, in 2022, unravels the secrets of plant-insect interactions, according to a university release.
He teaches courses in the entomology and plant pathology department for the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences at the University of Arkansas, and has an appointment with the Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service, the outreach arm of the Division of Agriculture.
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“Dr. Kariyat came to us with a wealth of experience in plant defense responses and has quickly built a strong research program here,” said Ken Korth, head of the entomology and plant pathology department. “We were so fortunate to have him join our department with split duties in research, teaching and extension. He excels in all those responsibilities and is very deserving of this professorship, which will certainly help him to be a more productive and impactful faculty member.”
The Clyde H. Sites Endowed Professorship was established in 2004 through the Ben J. Altheimer Charitable Foundation Inc., a longtime supporter of the University of Arkansas System and its institutions.
“I am honored to receive this prestigious endowed professorship,” Kariyat said. “With the additional resources available, as a lab, we hope to better understand plant response to both biotic and abiotic stressors, with the goal of building resilient crops that benefit the state of Arkansas, and beyond, while also developing novel pest management tools that can be employed for sustainable agriculture.”
Currently, Kariyat advises five PhD students and a master’s student in the entomology and plant pathology department at Bumpers College. His research is supported by grants from NSF-NIFA Plant Biotic Interactions, a joint program by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture, as well as USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, the Arkansas Biosciences Institute, and industry partnerships.
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Kariyat earned his bachelor’s degree in agriculture science in 2003 from Kerala Agricultural University in India and his master’s degree in agronomy from the University of Wyoming in 2007. His doctorate from Pennsylvania State University in 2012 focused on insect-plant interactions. He also completed postdoctoral work at ETH Zurich in Switzerland and spent time doing field work in Greece.
Before joining the experiment station, Kariyat was a faculty member at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. He studied plant surface defenses and secondary metabolites in plants, which are some ways to identify alternative pest management methods, to understand how those affect an insect herbivore’s overall fitness traits.