Cathy Aime

Cathie Aime is Professor of Mycology, Department of Botany & Plant Pathology and Director of the Arthur Fungarium and Kriebel Herbarium at Purdue University, and a Purdue University Faculty Scholar. She received her M.S. and PhD in Biology at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University under the guidance of Orson K. Miller, Jr., and conducted post-doctoral research at the University of Oxford under Lorna Casselton. Cathie’s research combines expeditionary field work and traditional approaches with molecular genetics and multi-omics approaches to understand fungal diversity and evolution. Areas of specialization include tropical basidiomycetes, systematics of early diverging basidiomycete lineages (including smuts and yeasts), evolution of rust fungi, and epidemiology of tropical tree diseases. Cathie has served previously in the MSA as Secretary (2006–2009), Managing Editor of Mycologia (2014–2017), Associate Editor of Mycologia (2009–2014), co-chair for several symposia and workshops, and as chair or member of numerous committees, and is currently Vice President of the International Commission on the Taxonomy of Fungi as well as an executive committee member of the International Mycological Association. She has published 200+ peer-reviewed papers and 150+ species; discovered and described 15 new genera and 1 new family & order of fungi; been invited to speak in 21 countries in Asia, Africa, Europe, and South, Central, and North America; and developed and presented six workshops and short courses for students in low-income countries in Asia, Africa, and South America. Cathie is a fellow of the MSA as well as the AAAS, the Explorer’s Club, and the Linnaean Society of London.