Professor Nicholas Provart has dedicated decades to the Arabidopsis community, performing research as well as communicating and teaching about this crucial model plant. Recently, the community showed their appreciation for what he has given to them.
Provart was awarded a Later-Career Award for Dissemination of Arabidopsis Knowledge by the North American Arabidopsis Steering Committee (NAASC). This award was presented at the 2025 International Conference on Arabidopsis Research in Gent, Belgium.
The NAASC award glowingly asserts that “Through visionary pedagogy, widely adopted open-access resources & relentless advocacy, Nick sets the standard for sharing Arabidopsis knowledge. His impact on plant biology science, education & communication has been truly transformative.”
Provart is Professor in Plant Cyberinfrastructure and Systems Biology at CSB and the Department Chair. He was President of NAASC from 2014-2015. His research at the department has previously earned him a 2018, 2019, and 2020 Highly Cited Researcher award from Clarivate Web of Science.
He has made notable contributions to the bioinformatics field, including spearheading the creation of the Bio-Analytic Resource, a globally recognized computational platform for generating hypotheses by bringing together different types and sources of data. Originally built for the Arabidopsis thaliana model organism, BAR eFP and ePlant now provides genomic data for 30 plant species.
Provart has also dedicated himself to educating the next generation of scientists both at U of T and as a long-time online educator on the publicly accessible platform Coursera.
Provart commented that he “has been very privileged to work with 83 undergraduate students on BAR projects, dozens of graduate students, and BAR-tender extraordinaire, Asher Pasha, over the past 20 years. It is through their efforts that the BAR has become a widely used and trusted resource”.
Stay tuned for Provart’s upcoming online public lecture as an award recipient. Congratulations Nick!
