BIO: Dr. Niblack is a professor in the Crop Sciences Department of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She received B.S. and M.S. degrees from the University of Tennessee and the Ph.D. in 1985 from the University of Georgia in Plant Pathology. Following graduate school, she completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Iowa State University, spent 13 years at the University of Missouri in the Department of Plant Microbiology and Pathology, and moved to the University of Illinois in 2001. She has conducted research and extension programs on plant-pathogenic nematodes, primarily Heterodera glycines, the soybean cyst nematode, for 25 years. Among the awards she has received is the Outstanding Achievement Award from the United Soybean Board in 2003. She is currently serving as past-president of the Society of Nematologists.