Gregory R. Noel
Dr. Greg Noel was born in Las Cruces, NM, but lived in Arizona for 20 years. His first exposure to nematodes was in the late 1950s when he lived in Holland and Belgium while his father was on temporary assignment as a USDA quarantine specialist
on the Golden Nematode.
He attended the University of Arizona where he received a B.S. in Agriculture and an M.S. in Plant Pathology
under the direction of Dr. Mike McClure. His thesis research was on the histochemistry and enzyme activity of cotton infected by Meloidogyne incognita. He completed his Ph.D. in Plant Pathology at the University of California, Davis. His initial major professor was Dr. Merlin Allen, but following Dr Allen's untimely death, Greg completed his Ph.D. program under the guidance of Dr. Ben Lownsbery. His dissertation research was on the pathogenicity of Macroposthonia curvata,
Meloidogyne hapla, Paratrichodorus christiei, and Tylenchorhynchus clarus to alfalfa.
Dr. Noel has spent 25 years as an ARS nematologist located on the campus of the University of Illinois. He is an adjunct faculty member and was promoted to Professor of Nematology in the Department of Plant Pathology. He taught the nematode portion of the upper division course Principles of Plant Pathology and the graduate course Plant-Parasitic Nematodes. He also taught during the Second International Nematology Course in Tucumán, Argentina.
Dr. Noel's research has focused on the biology and management of soybean cyst nematode, Heterodera glycines, with emphasis on genetic control. He is the co-developer of 24 soybean cultivars and germplasm lines resistant to H. glycines. One cultivar, Fayette, is in the pedigree of more than 95% of the H. glycines-resistant cultivars grown in the Midwest.
Before resistant cultivars were widely available in Illinois, he was instrumental in obtaining an emergency use permit that enabled producers to apply aldicarb at low rates in furrow. His threshold levels for H. glycines are used by extension personnel and private companies throughout the Midwest when making management decisions. He also pioneered research to demonstrate the feasibility of gene deployment to maintain populations of H. glycines below the damage threshold. His research includes the effects of production practices and cropping systems on H. glycines population dynamics, and biological control with Pasteuria.
He has published 120 research papers, chapters, and symposia proceedings. Dr. Noel served as editor of Nematology Newsletter and Associate Editor and Editor of the Journal of Nematology. He also was Editor and Editor-in-Chief of Nematropica. He has served on several SON committees, including the Executive Committee, and chaired the APS Nematology Committee. He was President of ONTA during the Third International Congress of Nematology in Guadeloupe. Dr. Noel was an invited speaker to the NATO Advanced Study Institute in Italy and has been a consultant for the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture and EMBRAPA and CNPq in Brazil. He also served with USAID in Zambia.
Dr. Noel was elected Fellow of the Society of Nematologists in 2003.