R. James Cook, Professor Emeritus
College of Agricultural, Human, and Natural Resource Sciences
Professor Emeritus R. James Cook was one of the
University's most honored research scientists in plant
pathology and biotechnology. His expertise includes the
biological control of plant pathogens and health
management of wheat. For ten years he worked at the
interface of science and policy on biotechnology applied
to food and agriculture.
His research emphases included:
- Direct seed cropping systems to help wheat producers make the transition to direct-seeding;
- Wheat and barley root diseases, and identification of wheat and barley germ plasm with resistance to root diseases;
- Ecology of soil borne plant pathogens; and
- Agricultural biotechnology, including recombinant DNA technology.
He coauthored the white paper Transgenic Plants and World
Agriculture, released jointly in July 2000 by the
Brazilian,
Chinese, Developing World, Indian, Mexican, United
Kingdom and U.S. academies of science. Professor Cook
served on the USDA Advisory Committee on Agricultural
Biotechnology.
Biography
R. James Cook has held the Endowed Chair in Wheat Research since April 1998. He was a research plant pathologist with the USDA-Agricultural Research Service at Pullman from 1965 through March of 1998, conducting research on biological approaches to control root diseases of Pacific Northwest wheat. From 1965 to 1998, he was a USDA-ARS research plant pathologist in the Root Disease and Biological Control Research Unit in Pullman, with a joint appointment to the WSU faculty. He completed his B.S. and M.S. degrees at North Dakota State University in 1958 and 1961, and his Ph.D. at the University of California-Berkeley in 1964.
Awards and Honors
- 1997 Ruth Allen Award, American Phytopathological Society
- 1995 Award of Distinction, American Phytopathological Society
- 1993 USDA Distinguished Service Award
- 1993 Member, National Academy of Sciences
- 1993 Lifetime Achievement Award, Washington State University Faculty Association for Scholarship and Research
- 1993 Honorary Member, British Society for Plant Pathology
- 1990 Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science
- 1989 E.C. Stakman Award, University of Minnesota
- 1986 Distinguished Faculty Address, Washington State University
- 1985 USDA-ARS Distinguished Scientist of the Year
- 1983 USDA Superior Service Award
- 1983 Fellow, Japan Society for Promotion of Science
- 1980 Fellow, American Phytopathological Society
- 1976 Arthur S. Fleming Award, Downtown Jaycees of Washington, D.C.
- 1964-1965 Guggenheim Fellow to Adelaide, Australia
R. James Cook led the team of researchers at WSU that
made the first field test of a genetically modified
organism in the Pacific Northwest–a micro-organism
for control of root disease in wheat.