Jorge Mena-Ali Assistant Dean of Faculty Diversity Initiatives and House Don for Roschel College

B.S. Universidad de Costa Rica
M.S. Universidad de Costa Rica
Ph.D. The Pennsylvania State University

Plant Reproductive Ecology and Evolution
Evolutionary Disease Biology & Plant-pathogen interactions
Population Genetics, Molecular Ecology
Biology of Invasive Species, Conservation Biology , Tropical Biology

Directorate of Environmental Biology, National Science Foundation. Research Initiation Grant: Disease as a driver of diversification in life history, pathogenicity and reproductive strategies. August 2009-July 2014

Directorate for Biological Sciences, National Science Foundation. Post-Doctoral Minority Fellowship, Phylogenetic, ecological and life-history determinants of a globally distributed disease complex. July 2007-June 2009.

Most Recent Publications: 

Veterano ST*, Coffua LS*, Mena-Ali JI, Blair JE. 2018. Pythium yorkensis sp. nov., a potential soybean pathogen from southeastern Pennsylvania, USA. Plant Pathology 67(3): 619-625.

Coffua LS*, Veterano ST*, Clipman SJ*, Mena-Ali JI, Blair JE. 2016. Characterization of Pythium sp. associated with asymptomatic soybeans in southeastern Pennsylvania. Plant Disease 100(9): 1870-1879.

Mora, JM, Mena-Ali JI, Mora-Di Mare, A. 2014. El uso de Isertia laevis como percha por Centurio senex (Chiroptera: Phyllostomidae) en el suroeste de Costa Rica. Mammalogy Notes 1(2): 21.

Gibson* AK, E Petit, JI Mena-Ali, B Oxelman and ME Hood. 2013. Life-history strategy defends against disease and may select against physiological resistance. Ecology and Evolution 3: 1741–50.

Kariyat RR, JI Mena-Ali, B Forry*, MC Mescher, CM DeMoraes and AG Stephenson. 2012.  Inbreeding, herbivory, and the transcriptome of Solanum carolinense. Entomologia Experimentalis Applicata 144: 134–44.

Gibson* AK, JI Mena-Ali and ME Hood. 2010. Loss of pathogens and disease resistance in threatened plant species. Oikos 119: 1919–1928.

Hood ME, JI Mena-Ali, AK Gibson*, B Oxelman, T Giraud, R Yockyeng, M Arroyo, F Conti, A Pedersen, P Gladieux and J Antonovics. 2010. The worldwide occurrence of the anther-smut fungus Microbotryum violaceum on species of the Caryophyllaceae. New Phytologist 187:217-229.

Mena-Ali JI, L Kessler* and AG Stephenson. 2009. Evidence for sheltered load around the S-locus in Solanum carolinense. Sexual Plant Reproduction 22:63-71.

Good-Avila S, JI Mena-Ali and AG Stephenson. 2008. Chapter 2: Genetic and Environmental Causes and Evolutionary Consequences of Variations in Self-Fertility in Self Incompatible Species, pages 33-51. In: Self-incompatibility in Flowering Plants – Evolution, Diversity, and Mechanisms, edited by Noni Franklin-Tong (Springer-Verlag).

Mena-Ali JI, L Kessler* and AG Stephenson. 2008. Inbreeding depression in Solanum carolinense, a species with a plastic self-incompatibility response.  BMC Evolutionary Biology 8:10 (DOI:10.1186/1471-2148-8-10).

Mena-Ali JI and AG Stephenson. 2007. Segregation analyses of partial self-incompatibility in self and cross progeny of Solanum carolinense reveal a leaky S-allele. Genetics 177: 501-510.

Mena-Ali JI and OJ Rocha. 2005. Selective seed abortion affects the vigor of the offspring in Bauhinia ungulata L. (Fabaceae). Annals of Botany 95: 1017-1023.

Mena-Alí JI and OJ Rocha. 2005. Effect of ovule position within the pod on the patterns of seed production in Bauhinia ungulata L. (Fabaceae). Annals of Botany 95: 449–455.

Travers SE, JI Mena-Alí and AG Stephenson. 2004. Plasticity in the self-incompatibility of Solanum carolinense. Plant Species Biology 19:127-135.

Stephenson AG, SE Travers, JI Mena-Alí and JA Winsor. 2003. Pollen performance before and during the autotrophic-heterotrophic transition of pollen tube growth. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series B 358: 1009-1018.