Cris Argueso is an associate professor in the Department of Agricultural Biology who specializes in plant molecular biology and plant genetics. She studies how natural molecules in plants, known as phytohormones, function as decision-making molecules and dictate how plants grow and adapt to environmental stress. Her lab uses genetics and chemical approaches to change the way these molecules function, to create plants that can grow better under challenging environments and produce more.

Argueso received a Bachelor in Biology and Master in Plant Genetics from Campinas State University, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, working on maize and rice genetics of amino acid metabolism. She received a Ph.D. from Cornell University in plant biology, where her research was on systemic acquired resistance and salicylic acid signaling in plants. Her postdoctoral work at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill focused on plant hormone biology and signaling. During her postdoctoral work, Argueso discovered that the phytohormone cytokinin can act as a priming agent against disease, through crosstalk with the salicylic acid pathway.