Hello Global Disease Biology Students! My name is Evan Lozano, and I am a graduate of the Global Disease Biology Class of 2018. I was the GDB Peer adviser from Winter 2017- Spring 2018. When I started as peer adviser the major only had about 100 students and I loved watching it grow in the two years I worked with the department; by the time I graduated, there were over 300 GDB students. In my time as a GDB student, I also helped cofound the Global Disease Biology Major Club, where GDB students can come together to create community within the major and discuss current disease events. Being a GDB student opened so many doors for me and helped me discover my passion, plant pathology. I completed my practicum project in a USDA lab studying diseases caused by Phytophthora spp. in almond orchards and I was able to apply the skills and experience I gained directly to my first job post-graduation.

After graduating I had the privilege to work as a Junior Specialist for Dr. David Rizzo, the founder of the GDB major. I spent two years in his lab studying both Phytophthora ramorum, the causal agent of Sudden Oak Death, in waterways across northern California, and Phytophthora spp. in the Angeles National Forest alongside a Ph.D. student, Sebastian Fajardo. I am currently in my first year as a Ph.D. student at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and a member of Leslie Holland’s Fruit Crop Pathology lab. I will be studying Cranberry Fruit Rot, a fungal pathogen complex that is affecting cranberry crops in Wisconsin and the northeast. I would never have discovered the world of plant pathology without the GDB department and the freedom the major allows.