Scott Gold

2010 D.W. Brooks Diversity Award - Faculty

Department: Plant Pathology

Dr. Scott Gold is a professor in the UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Department of Plant Pathology. He has a joint research and teaching appointment at CAES, with much of his efforts focusing on fungi. He is actively engaged in the CAES Young Scholars Program and has served as a mentor to eight YSP students.

Scott briefly taught eighth grade in the Los Angeles Public School System when he first started his career and enjoys interaction with young people. He has accompanied two YSP trips as a chaperone, one in 2007 to Costa Rica, led by Dr. Paul Thomas and one this summer to Washington, D.C., led by Jessica Loggins. Scott has also been involved in recruiting efforts at high schools to enhance CAES undergraduate diversity, where his Spanish language skills are a plus.

Through Dr. Jonathan Arnold's NSF-REU summer grant program, he served as a mentor for four diverse undergraduates. Scott has served as a mentor for more than 40 undergraduates of diverse backgrounds in directed research credit courses.

Scott is a strong believer in the value of exposure to individuals of diverse background and is very pleased to see the progress in diversity that UGA has made since he joined the faculty in 1995. He enjoys the high diversity of undergraduates in his general elective course "Fungi, Friends and Foes."

A fungal molecular biologist with a doctorate from the University of California Riverside, Scott received his bachelor's in biology from California State University at Los Angeles and a master's in plant pathology from the University of Arizona. He is a member of the American Phytopathological Society, Mycological Society of America, Latin American Mycological Society, Georgia Association of Plant Pathologists and Sigma Xi Honor Society.

Scott is widely published and has had a well-funded research program over the years.