Kathleen McCalla

Research Specialist II
Lab Manager
Public Service Activities

Office: 340 Biosystems Research Complex
Phone:

Email: kjorda7@clemson.edu

Educational Background

B.S. Biochemistry
Lafayette College 2013

Profile

Kathleen McCalla (née Jordan) is a lab manager and research technician at Clemson University in the Advanced Plant Technology program led by Stephen Kresovich. She has been with the program since December 2016. Since she joined, sorghum has been the principal crop of interest for the Kresovich lab’s projects. Kathleen’s main analytical role has been to conduct and oversee compositional phenotypic data collection, using near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) and spectrophotometry to analyze biomass and grain samples from diversity panels. Starting in 2025, Kathleen and students training in the lab started using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) to expand analytical capabilities, first focusing on sweet sorghum juice. With these analytical capabilities, in conjunction with our genetic resources, our group can look at what the genetic controls of traits/phenotypes are and then determine what variation we can control.
Kathleen graduated from Lafayette College (Easton, PA) in 2013 with a Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry. Prior to working at Clemson University, she held laboratory positions in food safety testing and anesthesia quality control industries.

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