Gerry Berkowitz has been a tenure-track professor for over forty years (the first 13 at Rutgers before moving to the University of Connecticut as Dept. Head of Plant Science and Landscape Architecture). Dr. Berkowitz’ also had science administrative positions as Program Director (total of three years) in the Biology Directorate at the National Science Foundation (in two different Divisions; Molecular and Cell Biosciences and Integrative Organismal Systems). His program of scholarship includes research using electrophysiology to study plant ion channel structure/function, and molecular approaches to study plant signaling pathways that facilitate altered cell response to external (abiotic and biotic stresses) and internal (hormones and signaling peptides) cues. This work has been funded for many decades by federal agencies (NSF, USDA, DOE). Berkowitz also teaches courses in plant physiology and organic agriculture. In 2017, he took students in a class to visit one of the four medical marijuana grow facilities in Connecticut.  Since then, he has obtained research grant funding from a number of marijuana grow companies as well as from competitive federal grant agencies (USDA-NRI) to support work aimed at generating a deeper understanding of cannabinoid biochemistry, regulation of cannabinoid (and terpene) biosynthetic pathways, as well as identifying genes encoding transcription factors that facilitate trichome morphogenesis in developing female cannabis flowers. Many of the graduate and undergraduate students working in the Berkowitz lab have found research positions at cannabis companies. Berkowitz also worked with Dr. Mattthew DeBacco to develop this first (spring 2019) horticulture of cannabis production course at a U.S. academic institution. Our department now offers several cannabis horticulture courses, and has a minor in that field. Berkowitz recently organized a university-wide Cannabis Research Symposium at UConn. Research publications in refereed journals from the Berkowitz lab have identified control hubs for THC production and regulatory elements in the promoter regions of cannabis genes that affect expression during flower maturation. He has a patent (pending) on increasing THC levels in marijuana by increasing trichome number in cannabis female flowers.