Amy Verhoeven

I am a plant physiologist/ biochemist with interests in how plants acclimate and adapt to stressful environments. I am particularly interested in photosynthesis and photoprotective strategies that plants use in times of stress. A major research focus has been on low temperature stress, and the questions I have been asking center on how plants deal with high light intensities during winter, when photosynthesis is limited. My projects have centered on leaf antioxidant systems, a photoprotective process called the xanthophyll cycle, and an examination of how the photosynthetic light harvesting proteins change during acclimation to winter conditions, and upon recovery in the spring. I am also interested in how plants acclimate to a variety of light conditions, particularly with regard to their complement of photosynthetic proteins.