Plant Science Leaders - Pooja Tripathi

Pooja Tripathi is a PhD student in Horticulture and Crop Science at Ohio State University. After completing her Bachelor of Science in Agriculture in Nepal and her Master’s in Plant Biosciences in South Korea, Pooja is now a researcher in a USDA funded multi-institutional research project. Pooja brings a global perspective to her research and a passion for the evolving field of controlled environment agriculture.

Her work centers on indoor strawberry propagation—developing clean, high-quality transplants to help make indoor fruit production industry scalable and sustainable. Pooja’s research is grounded in real-world needs and driven by a vision of accessible agriculture that can thrive even in challenging growing conditions. By focusing on plant physiology and collaborating across disciplines, she’s helping to unlock new possibilities for growers and the future of food systems.

Conviron sat down with Pooja to talk about her research, her day-to-day work as a plant scientist, and her advice for the next generation of plant science leaders.

What sparked your interest in plant science?

I grew up in the capital city of Nepal. It was very populated and I never saw many plants growing around me. When we went to the market, my parents were always conscious about the kind of food we brought into the house. I remember hearing about food imported from neighboring countries, even though Nepal has a good climate and soil. That was disappointing to me. If something takes a week to arrive, it loses so much of its nutrition.

That really got me thinking and led me to plant science. I used to visit farms whenever I could and I particularly found controlled environment horticulture fascinating. At first, I thought agriculture was just leaves and dirt. But when I learned about high-tech agriculture systems, that changed everything for me.

What did your academic path look like?

My bachelor's degree was in general agriculture in my home country, Nepal. Then I pursued my master’s in plant biosciences at Kyungpook National University in South Korea. While I studied agronomy research, both indoor and field-based, I found I was more interested in growing things indoors.

Now I’m doing my PhD at Ohio State University. My research is in controlled environment horticulture—specifically, strawberry propagation. I started research during my first year in the program and am finding that working with strawberries takes a long time. I’m collecting data and in the writing phase now, with some projects yet to wrap up. My plan is to graduate in the spring of 2026.

Can you tell us about your strawberry research?

I’m working on indoor strawberry propagation. My project is part of a larger collaborative effort called the Precision Indoor Propagation Project known as PIP-CAP. We have a lot of universities across the U.S. working together—North Carolina, Florida, California and so on. Each team works on a different area—genetics, economics, physiology. We also collaborate with industry partners and stakeholders.

My research is about optimizing environmental conditions for propagating strawberries indoors. Right now, U.S. strawberry production is mostly field-based. However, field-grown plants bring issues—soilborne diseases and are unsuitable for indoor production. There has been increasing interest in indoor strawberry production in the US. To keep up with the demand for clean, high-quality transplants, nurseries need to produce planting materials indoors but the methods haven’t been optimized yet.

If we want to support the indoor strawberry industry, we need to understand how environmental conditions effect propagation efficiency. One challenge is chilling. Strawberry cultivars have chilling requirements, usually received naturally outdoors in late autumn and winter. That doesn’t happen when plants are grown indoors.

So we want to know if artificial chilling—like keeping plants in a cooler—can do the same job. We’re trying to understand the physiology behind that.

What kind of equipment are you using?

There are different steps. I grow the transplants in Conviron chambers so they can grow uniformly in required environment conditions. For chilling the plants, I use a custom-built industrial cooler. I start by growing the plants and providing temperature treatments in the Conviron chambers, then move them to the cooler, and finally transplant into the greenhouse for evaluation.

Right now, all of my work is in smaller scale research-size facilities. This is the first research of its kind in the U.S., so it hasn’t been done at commercial scale yet. We’ve also done field tours to understand what challenges growers face.

What does a typical day look like for you?

In the morning I first visit the plant growth chambers. I have a small nursery set up in a walk-in Conviron chamber. I always want to start there because I also have projects in the greenhouse, and I don’t want to cross-contaminate the plants in the chambers later on. I check that everything is working as expected, check the growing conditions and the plants and daily maintenance tasks.

Then I go to the greenhouse if I have plants there. After that, I spend time in the graduate student office—writing or working on presentations. We have monthly project meetings where everyone provides updates and we hear from other teams. We also have lab meetings. It’s nice to hear about other students' research on different crops and topics.

In the evening, I check the plants again. Some days I do a lot of data analysis, which gets tiring so I like to break it up with some hands-on work.

What are the research priorities you see in plant science?

There’s more focus now on the connection between agriculture, climate change, food security, and sustainability. It used to be just about increasing production. Now it’s also about efficiency and impact.

Indoor growing systems systems are evolving, and researchers are thinking more about sustainability. Researchers are now looking at water and nutrient use, carbon footprint, and long-term sustainability. There's a growing shift from addressing only immediate or local needs to considering the broader goals and long-term vision.

My research, for example, exists because strawberry growers in California—who produce the vast majority of U.S. strawberries—are facing challenges like drought, labor issues, and wildfires. Environmental regulations are also becoming more stringent. That’s creating the need for new systems.

What advice would you give to up and coming plant scientists?

Find something you are passionate about. It sounds like a cliché, but there will be hard days. Things go wrong. You wonder what you’re doing and why. Thinking about the bigger picture helps you stay motivated.

Talk to people—at conferences, seminars, and meetings. When people show interest in your work, that’s a great motivator.

What helps you succeed in your work?

I just want to be better than I was a few days or weeks or months ago, so I keep pushing myself, especially in areas I’m not good at. I take feedback from my mentor seriously. That’s what I’m here for. I want to be someone who can confidently speak about what they’re doing. I try to improve that all the time.

Plant science isn’t just about botany. It’s about survival. It’s what the future needs. There’s a lot more to it now. Plant science professionals now work with sensors, automation, AI, data science and engineering. If you’re interested in other fields, there are opportunities for you here too. The future of agriculture is tech-driven so it’s going to take a multidisciplinary approach and people from various academic backgrounds.

Learn more here about Pooja Tripathi’s work at OSU and the Strawberry PIP project.