John Bowman

Research Overview

John's research is focused on the evolution and development of land plants. His lab uses the flowering plant Arabidopsis thaliana and the liverwort Marchantia polymorpha as model genetic systems. The genomes of both organisms are available, as are approaches to generate loss- and gain-of-function alleles. Using these systems the lab addresses fundamental questions in plant evolution and development. The lab is primarily focused on two research areas. First, we are investigating the evolution and molecular basis of the alternation of generations of land plants, whereby both the haploid and diploid phases of the life cycle develop complex multicellular bodies. Second, we are interested in the origin of pattern formation and development of land plant body plans in both generations.

Research Group

Postdoctoral fellows

at UC Davis

Yuval Eshed (presently Prof. at Weizmann Institute, Israel)

Stuart F. Baum (presently at the US Patent Office, Washington DC, USA)

John F. Emery (presently a research lab manager at NYU, NY, USA)

John Alvarez (presently in lab at Monash)

Eric Engstrom (presently an Assistant Prof. at William & Mary College, VA, USA)

Rita Teixeira (presently a Lecturer at Arcos do Jardim, Coimbra, Portugal)

Anat Izhaki (presently an Asst Prof at the Volcani Insitute, Israel)

Sandra K. Floyd

Rajani Sarojam (presently a Senior researcher at Temasek Life Sciences, Singapore)

at Monash

Keiko Sakakibara (presently an Assistant Prof. at Rikkyo University, Tokyo, Japan; won the Botanical Society of Japan's annual prize for her work initiated my lab)

Pia Sappl

Dyani Lewis (presently a freelance science writer)

Lukas Brand (presently at Novartis, Zürich)

Magnus Eklund (presently a senior research fellow at Uppsala University, Sweden)

Yuki Hirakawa (presently an Assistant Prof. at Gakushuin University, Tokyo, Japan)

Chihiro Furumizu (presently a postdoc, University of Kumamoto, Japan)

Taiyo Toriba (presently a postdoc at NIBB, Okazaki, Japan)

Madlen Somssich

Liam Briginshaw

Eduardo Flores-Sandoval (presently in lab)

Tom Dierschke (presently in lab)

Tom Fisher (presently in lab)

Olive Cheong (presently in lab)

Shilpi Singh (presently in lab)

PhD students

Ji-Young Lee, PhD 2002 (UC Davis), presently Assoc. Prof., Seoul National University

Nathaniel Hawker PhD 2004 (UC Davis), presently Associate Winemaker, Golden Line Brands, CA, USA

Chris Zalewski, PhD 2010 (UC Davis), presently founder, CSO of Front Range Biosciences, USA

Karen Yip, PhD 2011 (UC Davis), presently at Seqmatic, Fremont CA, USA

Eduardo Sandoval-Flores, PhD 2013 (Monash), presently postdoc at Monash

Moritz Rövecamp, Masters 2013 (University of Zürich), presently postdoc at Zürich

Tom Dierschke, PhD 2015 (Monash), presently postdoc at Monash

Stevie Florent, PhD 2019 (Monash)

Olive Cheong, PhD 2019 (Monash)

Tom Fisher, PhD 2020 (Monash)

Liam Briginshaw, PhD 2020 (Monash)

Shilpi Singh, PhD 2022 (Monash)

Jonathan Levins, PhD in progress (Monash)

Honours students

Eduardo Flores (UNAM), 2007

Olive Cheong, Honours, 1st Class 2013 (Monash)

Michael Ingbritsen, 2A Class 2014

Tom Fisher, 1st Class 2015 (Monash)

Liam Briginshaw, 1st Class 2015 (Monash)

Matthew Louey-Gung, 2A Class 2016 (Monash)

Jonathan Levins, 1st Class 2021 (Monash)

Michael Hansford, 2022 (Monash)

Zheng Yang Teoh, 2023 (Monash)

Visiting PhD students

Sara Farrona (PhD student, Sevilla, Spain) 2003

Nathanael Prunet (PhD student, RDP-ENS Lyon, France) 2008

Moritz Rövecamp (Masters student, U. Zürich, Switzerland) 2013

Menno Pijnenburg (Masters student, U. Wageningen, Netherlands) 2015

Facundo Romani (PhD student, CONICET, Santa Fe, Argentina) 2018-2019

Andrea Movilli (PhD student, University Milan, Italy) 2020

Sabbatical Visitors

Joanna Putterill (Lecturer, University of Auckland, New Zealand) 1999

John F. Golz (postdoc, University of Edinburgh, UK) 2002

At Monash

Pia Steiger (Lecturer, University of Neuchâtel, Swizterland) 2007

Doron Holland (Volcani Institute, Israel) 2008

Neta Holland (Technion, Israel) 2008

John Yoder (Professor, UC Davis, Davis CA USA) 2010

Gyung-Tae Kim (Dong-A U., Busan, Korea) 2014-2015

Jeong Hoe Kim (Kyungpook National University, Korea) 2019