Dr. Jorge Freire da Silva Ferreira is a Research Plant Physiologist at the Agricultural Water Efficiency and Salinity Research Unit. He has a B.Sc. in Agricultural Engineering (1983), an M.Sc. in Tropical Fruticulture (1985), and a Ph.D. in Horticulture (1994) from Purdue University with an emphasis in the physiology and biochemistry of plant secondary metabolites. He worked as a plant physiologist for the (then) Southern Weed Science Lab in Stoneville, MS, where he developed technology used by the US Government to control illicit plants. He then worked as an environmental chemist for Agrevo, Aventis, and Bayer Crop Sciences. He taught plant biology at Southern Illinois University for two years, then joined the Appalachian Farming Systems Research Center in 2003. His research focuses on the physiological and biochemical responses of crops (such as strawberries and alfalfa) to salinity stress and the potential use of biochemical markers to identify tolerance to salinity. He is particularly interested in antioxidants, sugars, and other compounds that may be produced in response to high levels of stress (in the form of ROS) triggered by salinity in water and soils.
