Dr. Judith K. Brown has dedicated her career to the study of vector-borne plant pathogens of global importance. Over the last 30+ years, she has tackled a number of challenging viral disease problems around the globe. She has visited, lectured, and studied emerging viral diseases in >65 countries. Her laboratory has hosted over 60 visiting scholars or graduate students from 30+ countries. Dr. Brown is best known for her groundbreaking research on begomoviruses and their whitefly vectors. She has characterized a large number of begomovirus species/strains and epidemiologies, pioneered detection/identification methods, and helped establish taxonomy and nomenclature for geminivirus classification. With respect to the whitefly vector, she has conducted research to test the hypothesis that Bemisia tabaci is a cryptic species, consistent with the observed widely variable differences within and between genetic variants, i.e. host range, habitat, and begomovirus transmission. Recently, at least five cryptic species have been delineated by nuclear genome sequence analyses. Research also involves elucidating the transmission pathway and begomovirus-gut/salivary gland interactions, and use o...f dsRNA/RNAi as a biopesticide for gene knockdown in insect vectors. Recently she has contributed importantly to the emerging pathosystem of psyllids and Ca. Liberibacter and the reemerging Cacao swollen shoot badnavirus complex. Her passion and commitment to international plant pathology has led to applied solutions that improve global food security.