Steven MacKenzie has a B.S. degree in Biology from the University of Michigan and a Ph.D. in Plant Pathology from the University of Florida.  Steven is currently conducting research on fungi within the genera Colletotrichum.   In particular he is examining the role that sexual recombination and selection for pathogenicity plays within the C. gloeporioides population that causes crown rot on strawberry.  He is also evaluating strawberry germplasm for resistance to Colletotrichum crown rot caused by C. gloeosporioides and determining the mode of inheritance of resistance observed in select genotypes.  In addition to studies on C. gloeoporioides, he is conducting studies looking at the population structure of C. acutatum from multiple agricultural crops and the host specificity of C. acutatum isolates from these crops.     
 

http://strawberry.ifas.ufl.edu