spark7

Dr. Sunghun Park is a Professor and Director of Graduate Programs in the Department of Horticulture and Natural Resources at Kansas State University. Park holds BS and MS degrees from Seoul National University and completed his PhD and postdoctoral research at Texas A&M University. Park is an expert in crop functional genomics, bioengineering, and comparative genome-wide transcriptional profiling. During the past 30 years, Park has worked on plant tissue culture and genetic transformation of numerous crop species, including maize, and over 20 years of experience in plant stress physiology to understand plant adaptation mechanisms to abiotic stresses and physiological disorders in fruits and vegetables that involve Ca2+ regulation and abiotic stress. Park has also successfully established a functional genome analysis system in maize to determine how the genome sequences cause plant phenotypes using CRISPR/Cas9-mediated genome editing, RNAi, and standard overexpression tools. Park’s research has been primarily supported by the USDA and NSF.

February 2025