Dr. Mariya Khodakovskaya, professor of biology at UA Little Rock and Arkansas Research Alliance (ARA) fellow, will discuss her pioneering research in crop improvement through the use of carbon-based nanomaterials during the ARA Project Scope at 11 a.m. Wednesday, Sept. 28.

Khodakovskaya’s presentation, “Crops on Mars?,” will focus on her mission to boost plant productivity and enable us to address the increasingly critical global food demand as well as how her research will one day improve stress tolerance in plants developed for the exploration of Mars.

Her research has had a significant impact on the enhancement of the tolerance of agricultural plants to environmental stresses using biotechnology and nanotechnology. Environmental stresses, like high or low temperature, water deficit, flood, salinity, and heavy metals, can limit crop productivity and quality.

ARA Project Scope, a monthly webinar sponsored by ARA, invites members of the ARA Academy of Scholars and Fellows to share their latest research with the public. The one-hour webinar is free and open to everyone with a curiosity for science and discovery.

“ARA Project Scope was created to bring the world closer to Arkansas’s amazing research community,” said Jeremy Harper, ARA communications director. “Dr. Khodakovskaya and her team’s work with organic nanomaterials is shifting the paradigm to how the world protects its food sources.”

Khodakovskaya, who is also the director of the Applied Science Graduate Program at UA Little Rock, was inducted in the Arkansas Research Alliance Academy of Scholars and Fellows in December 2021. She is also the founder of Advanced Plant Technologies, LLC. Since 2008, she has been a principal investigator or co-principal investigator on grants totaling more than $10 million.

Those who would like to attend the webinar may register online.