Jingzhe Guo – Katie is one of the most enthusiastic people about science I know. She has consistently supported and empowered me to pursue my career, and I am grateful to have her as a lifelong role model.

Dior Kelley – Katie has been a mentor and inspiration for me since I was a graduate student at UC Davis. She is one of the most brilliant and energetic plant scientists I have ever known. She is a champion for women in science. It has been a pleasure to collaborate with her and co-author publications together. I am so glad that she will be honored as a Pioneer of ASPB based on her contributions to the field of plant stress responses and mentoring of early career scientists.

Jinzheng Wang – Katie made significant contributions in plant molecular biology, particularly in cellular organelle communication in response to developmental and environmental cues. Meanwhile, she made remarkable contributions as a mentor in training and motivating many undergraduate and graduate students, postdocs and visiting scientists in her lab, and as a community leader in improving the plant research field to support early career scientists and scientists with different backgrounds and culture. During my years in her lab, she was very generous and encouraging in exploring new research directions. She taught me many things, such as how to ask questions worth answering, how to step back to think about the big picture of research, and how to extract the essential information from a large volume of accumulated data. Every time I encounter setbacks, she always encourages me to keep working hard and uses her classic words “power” to motivate me. I am so honored to have had the opportunity to work with her.

Ruth Welti – Katie Dehesh is an excellent scientist, who selflessly puts in a lot of effort to advance the careers of her colleagues. I truly appreciate Katie’s friendship and support. I also appreciate Katie’s extensive work to advance the plant and the metabolomics communities.