James N. Siedow
jim.siedow@duke.edu(919) 681-6438
Vice Provost for Research and Professor of Biology
Jim Siedow received his BA from the University of Texas at Austin in 1969 and completed his Ph.D. in plant biochemistry from Indiana University in 1972. He did postdoctoral research at the University of Michigan and Rice University before joining the Duke faculty as an Assistant Professor of Botany in 1976. He became a Full Professor of Botany in 1987 and a Professor of Biology in 2000. He was a recipient of the Trinity College Distinguished Teaching Award in 1984. Past service at Duke includes election to the Executive Committee of the Academic Council (1992-93) and election as Chair of the Academic Council (1994-96). He also served as the Dean of Faculty Development in Arts and Sciences from 1997-99. He became Vice Provost for Research in January, 2001.
Professionally, Dr. Siedow has held numerous positions in the American Society of Plant Biologists, including President, Chair of the Board of Trustees, Secretary, and Chair of the Public Affairs Committee. He also currently serves as the Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Southeastern Universities Research Association and is a member of the Board of Governors of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Research Triangle Institute, among others. He is an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2002) and the American Society of Plant Biologists (2007). He currently serves as an Associate Editor for the Journal of Biological Chemistry and the journal Plant Molecular Biology.
In other national service, Dr. Siedow spent a year as a Program Director of the Cellular Biochemistry Program at the National Science Foundation in 1998-99 and he currently serves as a member of the Advisory Committee for the Biology Directorate of the National Science Foundation. He also served as a member of the U.S. Department of Commerce Deemed Export Advisory Committee (09/06-11/07) and the NIH Blue Ribbon Panel on Intramural Conflict of Interest Policy (Spring, 2004). Internationally, Dr. Siedow currently holds a Distinguished Honorary Professorship in the School of Biology at Capital Normal University in Beijing, China (2008-2010).
Dr. Siedow’s research is represented by over 120 publications and has primarily involved the study of oxidative reactions in higher plants with an emphasis on processes related to plant respiration. A primary project in his laboratory has involved characterizing the structural and regulatory features of the unusual cyanide-resistant (alternative) oxidase found in all plant mitochondria. In addition, a long-term collaboration with a group at North Carolina State University led to elucidating the molecular mode of action of the toxin associated with the fungus responsible for Southern Corn Leaf Blight.