The Fund
The Dallice I. Mills Seminar Fund has been established in the Department to support seminar speakers.
Dallice I. Mills
Dr. Dallice I. Mills’ retired in 2003 after 27 years in the Department of Botany and Plant Pathology at Oregon State University.
Dallice began his career as a teacher of science in Junior High and High Schools in Wisconsin and in Arizona. During this time he completed an MS at Syracuse University, and then a PhD from Michigan State University. Following a three-year post doctoral fellowship at the University of Washington, he was appointed in 1972 as Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois. He arrived at Oregon State University in 1976 as Assistant Professor in the Department of Botany and Plant Pathology, where he became Associate Professor in 1979 and Professor in 1985.
His major research interests included isolation and characterization of Pseudomonas virulence genes, cell signaling and pathogenicity determinants in smut fungi, probe technology for detection of phytopathogenic microbes, and development of a bioherbicide for control of grassy weeds. Dallice was a pioneer in the application of DNA technology to research on plant pathogens. He was among the first scientists to recognize that the emerging tools of molecular genetics provided a tremendous opportunity to advance our knowledge of plant-microbe interactions. Dallice provided important early leadership in the revival and restructuring of the genetics courses on campus and was one of the founders of the Genetics Program. He was an active and significant participant in the development of the OSU Center for Gene Research and Biotechnology, and in the establishment of the interdepartmental graduate program in Molecular and Cellular Biology.
He was major professor for 10 Masters and nine Doctoral students, and hosted in his laboratory, many postdoctoral fellows and visiting scholars from countries including Germany, Finland, Israel, Canada, Japan and the United Kingdom.
Over the years, Dallice was the recipient of many awards for his excellence in research and scholarship, including Fellow of the American Phytopathological Society, the Oregon State University F.A. Gilfillan Memorial Award for Distinguished Scholarship, and the Sigma XI Research Award. In 1998 he obtained a patent for the detection of Clavibacter michiganensis subsp. sepedonicus.