Ozgur Batuman is currently an Associate Professor at the Department of Plant Pathology at the Southwest Florida Research and Education Center, University of Florida. His current research focuses on pathogen identification and disease management in citrus and tomato production systems. To develop integrated pest management (IPM) in these crops, he studies plant disease etiology, pathogen biology, and epidemiology, and develops novel disease management strategies. Dr. Batuman’s current research and extension activities encompass the fundamental and applied aspects of citrus diseases, including Huanglongbing (also known as citrus greening), citrus canker, citrus black spot, and emerging resistant-breaking viral diseases of tomato, such as orthotospoviruses and tobamoviruses. He also studies plant-pathogen-vector interactions and characterizes insect-specific viruses of the vectors in these pathosystems. Previously, he was a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Plant Pathology at the University of California, Davis, where he later worked as a Project Scientist. In California, he mainly worked on thrips population dynamics and tomato spotted wilt virus incidence in processing tomatoes, peppers, and lettuce, and developed effective IPM strategies. He also identified and characterized several viruses and virus-like diseases (i.e., viroid and phytoplasma) of other vegetable crops in various countries, including the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Mali, and Ghana. Dr. Batuman received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in plant pathology from the University of Cukurova, Turkey, and his Ph.D. from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. His graduate studies primarily dealt with the Agrobacterium-mediated genetic transformation of citrus and model plants at the Volcani Center in Israel.