Title: Adjunct Professor
Company: Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community College District
Location: San Diego, California, United States
Olen C. Yoder, PhD, adjunct professor at Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community College District, has been recognized by Marquis Who’s Who Top Educators for dedication, achievements, and leadership in higher education.
With four and a half decades of experience, Dr. Yoder has built a distinguished career in academia, specializing in plant microbiology. He currently serves as an adjunct professor at Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community College District, a role he has held since 2020. In this position, he engages with students, lectures on various biology topics, and runs lab classes. His prior experience includes serving as a professor at Cornell University from 1971 to 1999. He has also worked as a consultant, teacher for various companies, and researcher at Celgene Corporation, Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, Diversa, and Torrey Mesa Research Institute. He is a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and is a fellow of both the American Society for Microbiology and the American Phytopathological Society. His educational background includes a Bachelor of Arts from Goshen College, a Master of Science from Michigan State University in 1968, and a PhD in plant microbiology from Michigan State University in 1971.
Reflecting on his path, Dr. Yoder has enjoyed a distinguished career in academia and research. He spent 28 years at Cornell University, where he conducted pioneering research on molecular plant-microbe interactions. In 2000, he relocated to California to focus on the emerging field of genomics, working at the Torrey Mesa Research Institute and later at biotech companies such as Diversa and Celgene Corporation. After retiring in 2013, he continued to contribute to his field through consulting and teaching. His passion for education led him to Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community College District in 2020, where he has been teaching undergraduate biology part-time for the past four years. Reflecting on his path, he says his career has been driven by a natural curiosity and a willingness to follow new opportunities. He chose to major in biology during his undergraduate years after being inspired by a professor who was incredibly passionate about the field. When he entered graduate school, he was not sure which direction to take, but another professor’s enthusiasm for a specific area of study guided him. This led him from Michigan State to Cornell and deepened his focus. Realizing that understanding genetic foundations was key to solving biological questions, he pursued genetics at Stanford, molecular genetics at MIT, and then returned to Cornell to put his knowledge into practice.
Professor Yoder takes great pride in his groundbreaking work at Cornell University, which includes the successful demonstration of genetic transformation in a filamentous fungal plant pathogen. This achievement has set a precedent for researchers around the globe, facilitating similar experiments and advancing the field of genetic transformation in plant pathogens. he attributes his success to transitioning from a focus on physiology to genetics, which significantly advanced his career. In the coming years, he aims to deepen his expertise by continuing to teach undergraduate students and embracing the new experiences that come with it. He finds great satisfaction in helping students pursue and achieve their goals.
Additionally, he plans to maintain his passion for travel. In advising aspiring professionals, he emphasizes that while things are constantly changing, the fundamentals remain the same. He encourages them to find a question they are passionate about, which will drive their motivation and hard work to find an answer. He advises using the most up-to-date technologies available to address this question, regardless of where you are in your career. As technology evolves, make sure to leverage it in your pursuit of answers.
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