Fridays 10:00 am till 11:30 am or by appointment
Peter Melcher
Professor & Department Chair- Biology, Biology
School: School of Humanities and Sciences
Phone: 607-274-3980
Email: pmelcher@ithaca.edu
Office: 255 Center for Natural Sciences, Ithaca, NY 14850
Specialty: Plant Physiology
Office Hours in CNS 255
Current Research in the Melcher Lab
- Cold and freezing tolerance
Understanding how plants tolerate and adapt to freezing stress
- Electrophysiology
The role of slow and fast electrical responses of plants to light, drought, heat, touch, and sound
- Ecophysiology
Understanding how introduced species impact endemic plants
Aashika Shah '27 preparing the system to measure freezing temperatures in pine.
We are investigating factors that alter freezing resistance mechanism in different species. In this experiment Aashika is studying red pine and how its ability to tolerate freezing alters during warm and cold spells over winter.
Left to right: Anya Weinrieb '26, Pamela Sherpa '28, Aashika Shah '28 and David Scutt '27 presenting their research at Whalen Symposium.
Anya Weinrieb '26, Pamela Sherpa '28, Aashika Shah '28 and David Scutt '27 presenting their research at the Ithaca College Whalen Symposium on the freezing resistance of trees.