The Walker Laboratory focuses on understanding how photosynthesis interacts with plant metabolism across many biochemical and physiological scales.

Photosynthesis drives life on this planet by providing the oxygen, food and energy required to support “higher” life forms – including us humans. With increasing population, and accompanying changes in consumption and climate, it is vital to understand how photosynthesis will respond to these greater challenges and explore opportunities to hack it to produce more food, fuel and fiber more sustainably. Research in our lab therefore focuses on resolving the biochemical, cellular and canopy-level mechanisms that determine photosynthetic fluxes of energy, carbon and oxygen with the end goal to better model plant response to climate change and engineer more efficient and nutritious crops.