R. James Cook
American phytopathologist

Robert James Cook (born 1937) is an American phytopathologist (plant disease researcher). He is best known for his work on soil-borne pathogens affecting wheat. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Wolf Prize in Agriculture and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences.
Early life and education
Robert James Cook was born in 1937 in northwestern Minnesota. He was the eldest of eight children born to his parents, Irene née Klug and Robert Donald Cook. He and his family lived on a 400 acres (160 ha) farm near the North Dakota border where they grew grain. Initially, Cook intended on becoming a farmer, and attended North Dakota State University for a degree in animal science and agronomy. During his undergraduate degree, he worked for a plant virologist, which inspired him to rethink his plans for the future. He stayed at North Dakota State for a master's degree in plant pathology in 1960. For his PhD, he attended the University of California, Berkeley to research soil-borne pathogens; he graduated with his doctorate in 1964.
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This entry incorporates text from “R. James Cook” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.