Julian Schroeder is Novartis Chair and Distinguished Professor at UC San Diego. Julian pioneered the identification and characterization of ion channels in higher plants and identified their functions and regulation mechanisms, in particular in stomatal guard cell signal transduction and abiotic stress resistance. His recent research is focused on uncovering the fundamental molecular, biophysical, genetic and physiological mechanisms by which plants regulate their stomata in response to drought and how stomata are responding to the continuing steep rise in the atmospheric CO₂ concentration. His laboratory’s recent research in this area will be presented in his seminar. In additional research using Arabidopsis, his laboratory identified the HKT1 transport mechanism that protects plants from salinity stress, which has been shown by others to be of relevance for breeding enhanced salinity tolerance in crop plants and is now being implemented.

Julian is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. He has received awards, including the Presidential Young Investigator Award (NSF), the ASPB Charles Albert Shull Award (1997), DFG Heinz-Maier-Leibnitz Prize, the Blasker Award in Environmental Science and is Churchill Overseas Fellow at Cambridge University. He serves on several advisory boards. He was founding Director of the UCSD/Salk Institute Plant Systems Biology Program (2005-2015) and of the Center for Food and Fuel for the 21^st Century (2012-).