Rate My Professor Rebekah Rampey

Rebekah A. Rampey serves as Professor and Department Chair of Biology at Harding University, where she has been a faculty member since 2005. She earned her Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Cell Biology from Rice University in 2004, working in Dr. Bonnie Bartel's plant hormone genetics laboratory. Rampey was promoted to full Professor in 2021 and appointed Chair of the Biology Department in 2018. Her research centers on auxins, phytohormones that regulate plant development through synthesis, degradation, transport, and conjugate metabolism. Collaborating with Dr. Bethany Zolman of the University of Missouri-St. Louis, Rampey employs genetic screens in Arabidopsis thaliana to study auxin-conjugate responsiveness and interactions with hormones like gibberellin. Notable projects include characterizing the J56 mutant via next-generation sequencing to identify mutations affecting auxin phenotypes, as well as analyzing quadruple mutants for auxin-gibberellin crosstalk. Undergraduate students participate in these investigations through courses like BIOL 3710L Molecular Genetics Laboratory, contributing to ongoing experiments on gene expression and mutant alleles.