Robert James Cook (born 1937) is an American

phytopathologist Plant pathology (also phytopathology) is the scientific study of diseases in plants caused by pathogens (infectious organisms) and environmental conditions (physiological factors). Organisms that cause infectious disease include fungi, oomyc ...

(plant disease researcher). He is best known for his work on soil-borne pathogens affecting wheat. He is the recipient of a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

and the Wolf Prize in Agriculture and is a member of the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

Early life and education

Robert James Cook was born in 1937 in northwestern Minnesota. He was the eldest of eight children born to his parents, Irene and Robert Donald Cook. He and his family lived on a farm near the North Dakota border where they grew grain. Initially, Cook intended on becoming a farmer, and attended North Dakota State University for a degree in

animal science Animal science is described as "studying the biology of animals that are under the control of humankind". It can also be described as the production and management of farm animals. Historically, the degree was called animal husbandry and the ...

and

agronomy Agronomy is the science and technology of producing and using plants by agriculture for food, fuel, fiber, chemicals, recreation, or land conservation. Agronomy has come to include research of plant genetics, plant physiology, meteorology, and ...

. During his undergraduate degree, he worked for a plant virologist, which inspired him to rethink his plans for the future. He stayed at North Dakota State for a master's degree in plant pathology in 1960. For his PhD, he attended the University of California, Berkeley to research soil-borne pathogens; he graduated with his doctorate in 1964. His dissertation was about the interactions and life cycle of '' Fusarium'', a genus of fungi that live in the soil and sometimes cause root disease.

Career

He joined the faculty at Washington State University in 1965 as part of the USDA

Agricultural Research Service The Agricultural Research Service (ARS) is the principal in-house research agency of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). ARS is one of four agencies in USDA's Research, Education and Economics mission area. ARS is charged with ext ...

. He was hired to research diseases that affect the roots of wheat plants and appropriate control strategies. One of his early findings was that the disease take-all could be controlled by continuously planting wheat, which eventually caused the soil to suppress the causative fungus. He was the

editor Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, photographic, visual, audible, or cinematic material used by a person or an entity to convey a message or information. The editing process can involve correction, condensation, orga ...

of the '' Annual Review of Phytopathology'' from 1985–1994. Cook retired from Washington State University in 2005, at which time he became a professor

emeritus ''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...

Awards and honors

He was awarded a

in 1973. In 1993 he was inducted as a member of the

. In 1998, the R. James Cook Endowed Chair in Wheat Research was established by wheat farmers in Washington with a $1.5 million endowment. In 2011 he received the Wolf Prize in Agriculture along with

Harris Lewin Harris A. Lewin, an American biologist, is a professor of evolution and ecology and Robert and Rosabel Osborne Endowed Chair at the University of California, Davis. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences. In 2011, Lewin won the Wolf Pri ...

. He is the namesake of the R.J. Cook Agronomy Farm, just east of the WSU campus in Pullman. He is also part of the Agricultural Research Service Hall of Fame.

Personal life

He married Beverly Ann Miller; the couple had four children together.

References

External links

''Untold Stories: Forty Years of Research on Root Diseases of Wheat''
Cook's 2017 memoir {{DEFAULTSORT:Cook, Robert James Living people 1937 births People from Moorhead, Minnesota North Dakota State University alumni UC Berkeley College of Natural Resources alumni Washington State University faculty American phytopathologists Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Annual Reviews (publisher) editors