Lindsey du Toit

Lindsey du Toit grew up in KwaZulu Natal Province, South Africa, where she completed her BS degree at the University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg (UNP) in 1991 with a major in plant pathology. Lindsey then completed MS (1995) and PhD (1998) degrees at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), majoring in plant pathology. Her first position thereafter was as the Plant Diagnostician for the Plant & Insect Diagnostic Lab at the Puyallup Research & Extension Center of Washington State University (WSU), from 1998 to 2000. Lindsey then took a faculty position as WSU Assistant Professor & Extension Specialist in Vegetable Seed Crop Pathology in 2000, based at the WSU Mount Vernon NWREC. Lindsey was promoted to Associate Professor in 2006 and Professor in 2013. The focus of her vegetable seed pathology research and extension program is on the epidemiology and management of diseases that affect vegetable seed crops grown in the Pacific Northwest USA. This includes small-seeded vegetable seed crops such as spinach, brassicas, carrot, onion, radish, and table beet. Lindsey teaches a graduate course in field plant pathology (Pl P 525). She served as Councilor-at-Large for the American Phytopathological Society (APS) from 2014-2017, and is the current President of APS. In 2018, Lindsey received the WSU Alfred Christianson Distinguished Professorship in Vegetable Seed Science.