Dr. Kendra Baumgartner is a research plant pathologist for the USDA-Agricultural Research Service in Davis, California. As an undergraduate at forestry school in Syracuse, New York, an elective course in forest pathology set her on a path toward a career in plant pathology. She then received her Ph.D. in plant pathology from the University of California, Davis. Since joining USDA in 2000, her research on diseases of grapevines and tree crops has covered a broad range of topics, from describing novel mechanisms of fungal recombination to modeling the long-term economic benefits of managing trunk diseases. Her lab is located on the UC Davis campus. She has had the opportunity to conduct collaborative research in the labs of colleagues in the U.K. and France as a fellow of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. She led a team of eight labs working together on trunk diseases of grapes, pistachios, and almonds funded by a grant from the USDA Specialty Crop Research Initiative.