Speaker 1  0:00  
Jim: Hi and welcome back to Plantopia Plantopia is the plant health podcast from the American Phytopathological Society. And I'm your host, Jim Bradeen. I'm a professor of plant pathology and associate vice president at Colorado State University. And today we are joined by Dr. Mary Palm. Mary earned her MS and PhD degrees in plant pathology from the University of Minnesota. And she spent her entire career at USDA, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service or APHIS, plant protection and quarantine PPQ, advancing from national mycologist through several positions of continuously greater impact. In 2006, Mary established and led the PPQ molecular diagnostics lab. And in 2014, she established the Huanglong being multi agency coordination efforts of the USDA initiative to expedite providing tools to seductress growers to combat HLB or citrus greening disease. In 2016, she assumed the role of director of USDA APHIS PPQ plant management, overseeing domestic pest and disease programs with funding totaling more than $200 million and Mary retired from that role in 2019. Throughout her career, Mary emphasized the importance of fungal systematics for accurate identification, diagnostics and regulatory decision making, as the PPQ national mycologist from 1984 to 2006. She identified 1000s of fungi coming into the US on plants and plant products, and she worked closely with practitioners in the United States identifying fungal pathogens that were previously known from the US. She's been a strong supporter of the national plant diagnostic network and served on the operations committee from 2006 to 2012. Mary is the author of several dozen peer reviewed journal articles, and co authored seven mycology books and numerous book chapters and she is widely cited and a well respected scientist. And Mary has a long history of service to our discipline, and to APS as well as other related professional societies. She was a longtime member of the APS mycology committee and served as committee chair and she was a longtime member of the APS Public Policy Board and was the board's fellow to the White House Office of Science and Technology from 2010 to 2011. Mary has served for six years as APS press senior editor, she also served as counselor at large which means serving society's Governing Council. In 2015, Mary was elected vice president of APS assuming the role of president in 2016, or impacts during your time on APS presidential team were significant and included new investment in relationships with international societies and members, as well as strengthening APS his commitment to equity diversity inclusion, Mary was also committed to the Psychological Society of America serving as president in 1998. Throughout her career, Mary has been the recipient of many awards and honors to name a few. In 1999. She received a Distinguished Alumnus Award from the Department of Plant Pathology at the University of Minnesota. In 2013. She received the APS Award for Excellence in regulatory affairs and crop security. And Mary was named fellow of the Psychological Society of America in 2003, and APS fellow in 2019. Mary, thanks so much for being on plant topia.

Speaker 2  3:38  
Mary: I'm very happy to be here. Thanks for the invitation.

Speaker 1  3:42  
Jim: Absolutely. So I'd like to know how you got into this field to begin with, how did you discover plant pathology and mycology in particular?

Speaker 2  3:51  
Mary: Well, I was a student at St. Olaf College in Northfield, and I took a class at St. Olaf from you know, it was a typical biology class. But part of what we studied were fungi. And then I saw that there was a class being offered across town at Carleton College. It was Jerry Hill who was a mycologist from Berkeley. And because we were on this semester and interim system, this was being offered starting in January. So I signed up for the class and, you know, took it through for the next two and a half months. And we studied mosses and algae nonvascular organisms. Anyway, I just really fell in love with the fungi. I thought that they were so interesting. I did well on the class. And so as I was moving on in my senior year, I was kind of trying to decide exactly what I should do. I didn't really have any specific idea of of what I wanted to do except something in the biological field. So I started looking at the offerings at the University of Minnesota because I was getting married that spring and we're moving to Minneapolis. And so I saw that the plant pathology department had tons of courses on fungi. So I applied and I was accepted. And after taking biochemistry during summer school, I showed up first day of classes at the university office. And I realized now that's kind of unusual that I didn't visit a lot of different departments. I didn't really have a person that I had been in touch with. I just figured, you know, this sounded like an interesting opportunity. That first semester I took introductory mycology with Ellen Stewart. And after the class, I said, you know, introduce myself and he hired me as a research assistant. And I worked with him both for my Master's and PhD as research assistants. So that was how I got involved and interested in plant pathology, and did mycology because a lot of what I did was maybe more Mike illogical oriented, but with a strong background in plant pathology.

Speaker 1  6:11  
Jim: That's really interesting. But I still want to know that very first mycology course that you took, or the nonvascular organisms course that you took, yeah. What made you take that particular class?

Speaker 2  6:24  
Mary: Well, so at St. Olaf, we had it a botany class. And there was a small section of the botany class that had to do with fungi, because fungi were still considered closely related to plants. And part of that section on fungi included rust, fungi, and the rest lifecycle and you know, some of the other fungi and interesting information about them. So that got me interested in the fungi. And then when I saw nonvascular plants that that would include fungi. That's what got me interested.

Speaker 1  6:56  
Jim: That's great. So you're clearly passionate about fungi? Yeah. And about mycology. Then you mentioned Ellen. Stewart, somebody was really, very formative in your own professional development. Were there other role models or key mentors that you want to reflect on?

Speaker 2  7:15  
Yeah, well, Ellen definitely was, I would say Thor calm at all. I mean, none of these were official or formal, but really so many of the faculty there. But one of the things that we had to do, but it turned out most of us wanted to was if we were going to submit an article or an abstract or anything, it went through soracom at all first, because he was, you know, he had been an editor at APS. And he was a good writer. And so I learned a lot about writing from Thor calm at all. And oh, gosh, Jim Groth was a friend and a mentor, Ben Lockhart. And I think in general, the department, I really appreciated how, number one, they emphasize being involved with APS and how important that was. But then also, I feel like there was a real effort to help us as students be prepared. So between Dr. Commodore, you know, reviewing manuscripts and providing good input on that. And then one of the other things that we did and pretty much had to do was, before we would go to a national or local meeting, there would be an afternoon set aside, and we have to give our presentation to other students as well as faculty. And that was actually scarier than I think, than doing it at the meeting. But it was really good mentoring and good learning to get the feedback right there as you're giving it or right after your presentation, and learning how to see to an audience, and also to think on your feet.

Speaker 1  8:58  
Jim: And that tradition continues in the department at University of Minnesota to this day. It's great, maybe it's a little bit intermittent, but that tradition is something that is still impacting the work of students today.

Speaker 2  9:11  
Mary: Well, I think it's really important. I think, that plays a critical role, because how you write and how you speak becomes a reflection of you. And so I think, for students to get that input and feedback is really helpful.

Speaker 1  9:25  
Jim: Certainly, those are foundational skills, wherever your career takes you, writing public speaking are very important skills that will take you far. Yeah, which is maybe a nice segue into the next question I have for you, and that really relates to your career. You've had an incredibly impactful career. You spent your entire professional career with USDA APHIS. Yeah. How did you end up at USDA and APHIS in particular?

Speaker 2  9:52  
Mary: I had a colleague and friend, Amy Rosman, who was the, what they termed national mycologist with APHIS you know, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, the plant protection and quarantine side of that. And I came out to the Washington DC area to visit her as part of a trip I was making to look at potential postdoctoral positions. And I just thought it sounded like such a cool job. And it turns out that she was hired by ARS because she was housed in the same laboratory building, as the ARS people, Agricultural Research Service people. So when she took that position, her APHIS position was open, and was advertised. And so I applied for it. Didn't hear didn't hear, you know, so I was applying for lots of other jobs. And out of the blue, about six months later, I get a call saying that they'd like to offer me this job. It's like, I would love to accept that job. And for 22 years, I guess it was out of my 35 year career, that was my position, it was just wonderful. I learned so much, and had so many opportunities. What that position entailed was, I would receive plant protection, and quarantine has people at ports of entry, and some of which have what we call identifiers, who can oftentimes make a final identification of something that's found on plant material coming into the country. And if they can't, then it would get sent to me. And so for me, at that time, if there was a FedEx delivery with lots of boxes, it wasn't like Christmas, it was like, Oh, my goodness, because he pretty much I had to drop everything in order to make identifications of these virgins, we called them. And because of that, I saw material, small parts of it. But you know, types of plant material from all over the world, and fungi from all over the world. And so instead of having to travel a long distance, like a lot of mycologist have to do to collect for their research. This was just a built in collection system. And it was so interesting, because there were a lot of fungi that I saw that were new to science, one of the things that was very helpful, and essential in doing my work was number one, they had a really great mycology library that had almost anything that going back several 100 years any reprint or publication that you might need to look up a description or information about the organism. And then a herbarium of plant pathogens specimens. So generally, it would be like the leaves with the leaf spot. But it's the largest fungal herbarium in the world. There's more than I don't know how many are there now, but more than a million specimens. And a number of those specimens had been deposited by people that had been in my position, you know, as the USDA National mycologist. And so that was really helpful too. And then I also had the mycologists that were in the department that I could consult with, depending on what their specialty was, it was a wonderful, interesting. And it really, you know, because there's no treatment, when a plant disease is found in a shipment, as opposed to insects where you can fumigate. That meant, generally speaking, if the organism wasn't present in the US shipment was rejected. And it either got destroyed or sent to a different country. So there was a lot riding on the identification. And I'd say the important thing, because at that point, we weren't using any molecular techniques. But I think it was important, even if I couldn't put a species name on it, to be able to compare it to what we knew about that genus of fungi in the US. And I could at least say, well, it's not any of these, you know, so kind of process of elimination, even if I couldn't put a specific name on it, and then was it causing a disease? So those were two important things to take into consideration when making an identification and a recommendation

Speaker 1  14:23  
Jim: As national mycologist, you've talked about the always on demand aspect of the job that when something urgent came along, you had to respond that, yeah. You've also sort of hinted at the extremely broad training that disposition of fires. Yes. What do you think in terms of personal qualities or formal professional training? What's really useful to position somebody for a career as national mycologist?

Speaker 2  14:50  
Mary: Well, I would say in terms of the mycology, I had a broad background as far as fungi were concerned, you know, at set apart Part of Plant Pathology at the University of Minnesota at the time, had a lot of courses. And so I had taken Elwin Stewart's intro mycology and then advanced courses in mycology, you know, as well as genetics and physiology, etc. And then other courses dealing with nematodes, bacterial diseases. And so I feel like having kind of a broad background is really important and helped me also, it was very helpful for me to have worked in the plant disease clinic, we were required to do that each summer for a week. And I think for anybody, that's really a good way to broaden your perspective, because I plant come in, and you need to be the detective, to figure out what is causing the problem. So you can make an accurate recommendation, hopefully, you have some idea of what characters of a fungus or an other organism are important, but then you need to get into the literature. So it kind of broadens your perspective to on the literature that's out there. And, you know, now with the internet, it makes it much easier to for Google the name of an organism or the name of a plant and get some possibilities lined up as to what this might be. And then you just kind of tried to narrow it down. But I think for anybody working in a diagnostic lab for a short period of time volunteering and one at your university, it gives you a whole different perspective.

Speaker 1  16:31  
Jim: Yeah, that's great advice. And you mentioned that, really, a significant portion of your career was spent as national mycologist. And then, of course, you went on to a whole series of leadership roles. Yeah, USDA APHIS. When you look back at your career, in the many professional impacts that you've had, what stands out is something that you're especially proud of,

Speaker 2  16:52  
Mary: Oh, boy, it's kind of interesting, because coming from Minnesota and Plant Pathology, one of the first things that I had to deal with was diseases on citrus. And of course, again, much of what I was seeing had nothing to do with the flora of Minnesota. But later on into my career, I was asked to and this is after I became part of the leadership and the national identification services. And I was asked to lead up a multi agency coordination group, Congress had given us $20 billion to help the citrus growers whose crops were being devastated by citrus greening, also known as long long being. And it's a disease complex, that is tough in so many different ways, in terms of detecting it, how it's spread, how, you know, it takes a while until it's a problem, and then it's too late to do anything about it, there was no treatment. And so there was a lot of research being conducted. But no real tools for the industry. At that point, what I was asked to do was develop this group that would request proposals for near term tools, that if they had a little bit of funding, they would be able to further develop the tool in order to get it out to the citrus industry more quickly than they could have Without this additional funding. You know, there was a group of people that reviewed proposals that develop the criteria. And I learned a lot about citrus, each, you know, for example, the three big states, Florida, Texas, and California, are each totally different when it comes to how they grow citrus, what they grow what their horticultural practices are, it was very interesting to in that regard. And I had been doing this throughout my career. But in this case, it also became very essential to work with the State Department's of agriculture, to work with the industry to work with researchers around the country, or around the world. And then also to be aware of the political aspects, because they gave us $20 million. And they were keeping an eye on it. They wanted to know what we were doing with it. And so there had to be some wins along the way where I could report out that we had used it for such and such, and here's what we were planning to do with the IRS. And I believe that, you know, that was in 2015. And they're still providing $20 million for that same effort. So Congress was very supportive of it. And I felt like that use a lot of my skills for being able to reach out to lots of different people. And then also having the scientific background to be able to feel confident in the science that we were supporting.

Speaker 1  19:59  
Jim: And certainly very impactful for us and in worldwide AG. So you obviously spent your career in the DC area. Yes. Beltsville, Maryland, I assume.

Unknown Speaker  20:12  
Mary: That's correct. It's just north of DC.

Speaker 1  20:14  
Jim: And so you've had opportunity to interact with lots of national and state leaders, I'm sure. You once met now President Joe Biden. And you tantalizingly described this as a very funny, meaty. How did you meet President Biden?

Speaker 2  20:31  
Mary: I met him because I, again, I'm putting in a plug here for getting involved in things because you never know what opportunity will arise. So I had been very involved with the Public Policy Board. And Kelly Eversole, had played a big role in getting an internship at the Office of Science and Technology Policy, which is, I hadn't didn't realize it at the time. But the office of the president has all these, you know, there's OMB, there's the Office of Science and Technology Policy, a lot of different offices that work for the President to handle if something comes up that's in their wheelhouse, they become involved in that. So I was selected to be a fellow in 2010, at in OSTP. And so I divided my time, three days downtown, and then two days at my job with PDQ. So by the end, I was feeling a little schizophrenic. But it was just such a wonderful experience. And one of the what I think was a benefit of working at OSTP was we could sign up to give tours of the West Wing, either at night or on weekends. So I led quite a few of those, some for family, some for plant pathologist. And when the public policy board was in town in the spring of 2011, I took several groups. And the last group that I took was the evening, it was a Tuesday evening, and we had been going through the West Wing, I could take up to six people at a time. And there was a lot of activity more than normal on in the evenings, there were a lot of cars there. And it turned out that there had been a dinner over in the residence for returning veterans, all of a sudden, people started coming into the West Wing, you know, on their way there to their office or to go home. And we were standing right next to the Oval Office with one of the Secret Service people and I could see something changed. And so I look to the right, and there was Vice President Biden, and I said, Hey, you guys look at the Vice President is coming this way. So he came up to us and first he put out his hand to Mike Boehm. I'm Joe Biden, nice to meet you. And Mike. I'm Mike Boehm from The Ohio State University. So then they started doing some trash talking for because it was the NCAA, and then he introduced himself to everybody else. And when he got to me, very nice to meet you. And I had been wondering in my head, if I should do this. But I said, my 80 year old aunt, that lives in North Dakota thinks you are the most handsome man that she's seen. And he said, Do you have a phone? Call her? So I called my aunt, Santana, Ruth. I have Joe Biden here. He wants to talk to you. And so I hand it over to him. And they talk politics for a few minutes. And my aunt, of course, was absolutely so thrilled. When I asked her the next day, I said, Did you think I might have been joking? She does? Oh, Mary, you would never do something like that to me about that. Anyway, as a result of our talking some more, he invited us into his office. And you know, we were in there for probably 2025 minutes. And then his assistant came in and said, It's time to go to the situation room that meetings just about to start. And so you know, he talked a little bit more to us. And his assistant came back in and said, the President is there now it's time to go down to the meeting. Eventually, he did go to the meeting. But he's just like what you see, he really is he's just very personable. And it was a real thrill to be able to have the chance to meet him and experience that.

Unknown Speaker  24:46  
Jim: I'm sure that was great fun for your aunt as well.

Speaker 2  24:49  
Mary: Oh my goodness. She was always very involved in politics. So for her that was really very exciting.

Speaker 1  24:58  
Jim: And I guess the moral here is start a career in plant pathology, we'll take you places and never exactly know where you're going. But you never know something interesting.

Speaker 2  25:07  
Mary: You never know. And I think taking opportunities like you know, the public policy board or other opportunities where you're on a committee or even outside of the specific field of plant pathology. But yeah, as a plant pathologist, you just never know where it's going to take you.

Speaker 1  25:25  
Jim: So please tell us a bit about how your professional life particularly your government experience prepared you for leadership roles in APS, and MSA, the mike logical Society of America.

Speaker 2  25:38  
Mary: One of the ways that it helped me was, you know, throughout my career, but especially later in my career, for example, with the citrus work, but also in other like plant pest programs for emerald ash borer or Asian Longhorn beetle, those, it was always very important to work with stakeholders, which were State Department's of agriculture, our counterparts in each of the state, the researchers, the industry, considering all of who was impacted, and working, at least communicating with all of them, helped me in terms of leadership within APS, that trying to look at all the different elements within APS, and trying to make sure that they all had a voice or were represented, because I felt like that was really important.

Speaker 1  26:32  
Jim: Yeah, wonderful. certainly seems that your skill sets both the skill set, you honed as a professional working for APHIS. And of course, your leadership roles. And APS were very complimentary build from each other, but also contributed to each other as well.

Unknown Speaker  26:48  
Mary: Well, it's definitely yes.

Speaker 1  26:50  
Jim: So there's no question that you're a big fan of fungi? Yeah. Because I know you I know that you have another passion as well. You're quite interested in horses? I am. How long has that been part of your life?

Speaker 2  27:07  
Mary: Well, I started writing regularly in 2008. My kids had both were out of the house in college or graduated from college, and a friend from work, had horses, and said, you know, come on out, if you'd like to come out and see me please do. So I did. That was sort of the start of my love of horses. And she had 10 paso finos, they're called. And it said, a horse that has its ancestry in this many of the horses that were in this area of Spain, and they have a four beat gait. So they're very smooth to ride, they have a lot of get up and go. So she and I and other friends would go out and ride along some of the trails by where she kept her horses. And then also we go to the regional shows, and compete there, which I have to say, I enjoyed that because I enjoy seeing the people everybody was apostle, fino, you know, fanatic. And so it was fun to be with, you know, to be with that group of people and to talk horses. But the actual competing in the ring, I just would get so nervous. And of course, then the horse would get nervous. And I did really well as we were leaving the ring when I relaxed, but I just had to try to keep myself calm, and I'd sing to myself or whatever, while we were inside the ring. But I had a couple of really nice horses that did well. Now I mostly trail ride, but I've got three horses of my own. You know, even if I'm not out riding, I just think they're such interesting, wonderful animals. When I come home from work, I take my book and go sit out by the paddock and read and they'd come and wonder what I was doing, but they're just really, really enjoyable.

Speaker 1  29:07  
Jim: Sounds wonderful. Seems that you've got plenty of things to keep you busy in retirement as well. That's great. Thanks, Mary. This has been a really fun conversation. Thank you again for being part of plant topia, as we're signing off, what words of advice do you have for early career professionals that are thinking about careers in plant pathology, maybe thinking about a career with the US government?

Speaker 2  29:32  
Mary: Now, I think a lot of what we talked about still applies. Try not to be too focused into one very narrow area. And I think nowadays it's pretty hard not to be but at least give yourself some other opportunities to branch out and you know, learn about other aspects of plant pathology, whether it's the plant diagnostic clinic or an internship and the USDA has an number of places where plant pathologists can and have been very impactful and successful, whether it's with the Agricultural Research Service, as a researcher, whether it's with NIFA National Institute for Food and Agriculture, that provides funding, so you'd be more of a managing a program that provides important funding for plant pathologist. So within asis plant protection and quarantine, there are a number of positions that require a plant pathology background. And that could be in risk assessment. It could be in working in a molecular lab, it could be gathering information about fungi, organisms that are found in shipments or that are found within the United States. And we have to determine what to do about that. You know, as I said, there are a number of plant pathologists that have had, and still are having successful careers within the US government. You know, and for me, as a graduate student working for the US government was not exactly thought of that highly. I mean, most people were going to graduate school with the idea of going into academia for the most part, and some into industry. But I didn't know many that worked for the federal government. But there are more now. So I don't think that is it's unusual. But the other thing that it allowed me was some flexibility as a mom, so that my work life balance worked well, for me, I may have worked extra hours, but I also knew that I could go home in the evening, and be with my kids with my family. For me, that was really important. So I think there are a lot of opportunities, one thing I would recommend is that if you are looking at job openings in the federal government, I think it's a good idea. If you know somebody that's in that department or somebody that you know, within the federal government, think it's a good idea to try and get a little bit more information about what exactly the job is because job descriptions are often a little bit vague. And so sometimes it's hard to know exactly what the position is. But then also, when you're applying for a job with a government agency, what the people that are looking at your application are going to be looking for is very different from what a plant pathology department would be looking for if you're applying in academia. And so my recommendation would be to reach out to somebody that has familiarity with the hiring practices, that can give you some guidance on the types of things that it's important to emphasize in your application. Because otherwise, it's a very different process. And it's such a fair process that sometimes people that are well qualified, may fall through the cracks. So I think reaching out to somebody and just asking for feedback on your application is really important to also

Speaker 1  33:13  
Jim: Thank you so much for those insights. It's nice to know too, that you found your role with with USDA APHIS to be a work life balance that you had you mentioned it. Yeah, that really worked very well for your life. And thank you again for being on Plantopia. It's always fun to talk with you. 

Unknown Speaker  33:31  
Mary: Well, thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Speaker 1  33:34  
Jim: We just heard from Dr. Mary Palm, former director of USDA APHIS PQQ pest management, I'm Jim Bradeed, the host of Plantopia the plant health podcast from the American Phytopathological Society. Thank you for listening.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai