Elizabeth (Liz) Van Volkenburgh is a Professor of Biology at the University of Washington in Seattle, WA. Her research centers on how plants grow, especially leaves. She teaches courses in Plant Physiology, and the Physiological Basis of Plant Behavior. Liz received her B.S. in Botany from Duke University, and her Ph.D. in Plant Physiology from the University of Washington. After postdoctoral work at the University of Illinois, and the University of Lancaster (UK), she accepted a position at the University of Washington and developed her Plant Growth Lab. Students in this lab have worked on leaf growth in beans, poplar, Arabidopsis, tomato, corn, and sunflower. Research has ranged from the molecular basis for light-induced leaf cell expansion, to the adaptive value of leaf teeth, and most recently the mechanisms underlying drought tolerance in beans. This work has involved international colleagues, via sabbatical and research visits at the University of Groningen (Netherlands), Palacky University (Czech Republic), and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (Colombia). Throughout her work, Liz has been fascinated by what plants do, and how they do it, thus plant behavior. She is a founding member and President of the Society for Plant Neurobiology/Plant Signaling and Behavior.