AYETTEVILLE — Some people spend years trying to find a career that’s a perfect fit. For Taylor Klass, the new head plant pathologist and diagnostician at the Arkansas Plant Health Clinic, the pieces came together relatively early in her academic journey.
“I studied agronomy and animal sciences in the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences at The Ohio State University in undergrad,” Klass said. “For my agronomy major, I had to take an introduction to plant pathology course, and I loved it. It was like solving a puzzle, but for plants. I decided that in graduate school, I wanted to pursue a future career in plant pathology.”
Before joining the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture, Klass completed her Ph.D. in plant pathology last May. Growing up in the suburbs of Columbus, Ohio, Klass said she wasn’t exposed to much farming culture as a child, until an unusual summer camp in her early teens introduced her to a different way of life.
“I wasn’t in 4-H or FFA, but I grew up with a love for animals and the outdoors,” Klass said. “My parents sent me to this 1800s farm camp in Ohio’s Amish Country when I was in middle school — that was my first introduction to agriculture. For the whole week, you did farm chores and everything. I really fell in love with it — but I didn’t know you could study agriculture in college until the end of high school. When I figured that out, I knew that’s what I wanted to do.”
