Elizabeth Van Volkenburgh

Van Volkenburgh was born to Robert Heber and Jean Fountaine in Fort Sill, Oklahoma. Van Volkenburgh became interested in biology during high school. She was most interested in plant physiology and biochemical function. She studied botany at Duke University, and earned her Bachelor's degree in 1973.[1] She nearly majored in economics because of her mother, but found that she was best at the life sciences. After graduating, Van Volkenburgh worked as a technician in the Smithsonian Institution Botany Department. [1]Van Volkenburgh earned her doctoral degree at the University of Washington, where she investigated how leaves responded to light.[1] She spent her early career in University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign and moved to Lancaster University as a NATO Fellow for a postdoctoral fellowship.[2]

In 1987 Van Volkenburgh joined the University of Washington as an Assistant Professor of Botany.[3] She worked closely with Tony Bradshaw and Tom Hinckley. She has led the Plant Growth Lab at the University of Washington for over thirty years.[4] Her work considers the physiological regulation of leaf expansion in crop plants such as beans, corn and tomato. Leaf growth physiology relies on a range of environmental cues. She has studied plant growth and photobiology, as well as drought stress and genetic variation. She has worked on the rate of growth and drought tolerance in the common bean as well as in corn. Her lab are currently investigating how blue light impacts the mechanisms of plant growth and what impacts leaf shape and function.

Van Volkenburgh has been part of the American Association for the Advancement of Science ADVANCE program.[5]