# Colleen Higgins

Colleen Michele Higgins is a New Zealand academic plant pathologist, and is a full professor at the Auckland University of Technology, specialising in plant viruses and environmental microbiology. Higgins won an award for her teaching in 2013, for a course she developed on ethics and emerging health and biological technologies.

## Academic career

Higgins completed a Bachelor of Science with Honours in plant molecular pathology at the University of Queensland and a PhD titled HLA-B27 and related genes in the aetiopathogenesis of ankylosing spondylitis at University College London. Higgins returned to studying plants, and undertook postdoctoral research on viral evolution and genetically modified crops at CSIRO, the University of Queensland and Queensland University of Technology. She was also a senior scientist working on Botrytis cinerea at a New Zealand biotechnology company. Higgins then joined the faculty of the School of Applied Sciences at Auckland University of Technology in 2004, rising to full professor in 2024. Higgins developed a postgraduate paper on ethics and emerging health and biological technologies. In 2013, Higgins was awarded an Academic Excellence in Teaching Award by AUT. She has served as vice-president of the Australasian Plant Pathology Society.
Higgins's research covers diagnosis of plant viruses, viral diversity and evolution, and interactions between viruses and host plants. She uses molecular biology techniques to study the susceptibility of plants to viruses in crop plants and native New Zealand plants. She also studies bacterial genomics and taxonomy.

## Selected works

* Gaya K. Amarasinghe; Yiming Bào; Christopher F Basler; et al. (7 April 2017). "Taxonomy of the order Mononegavirales: update 2017". Archives of Virology. 162 (8): 2493–2504. doi:10.1007/S00705-017-3311-7. ISSN 0304-8608. PMC 5831667. PMID 28389807. Wikidata Q34554971.
* Gardette R Valmonte; Kieren Arthur; Colleen M Higgins; Robin MacDiarmid (20 December 2013). "Calcium-dependent protein kinases in plants: evolution, expression and function". Plant and Cell Physiology. 55 (3): 551–569. doi:10.1093/PCP/PCT200. ISSN 0032-0781. PMID 24363288. Wikidata Q46956211.
* Reema Jain; Pamela R von Hurst; Welma Stonehouse; Don Love; Colleen M Higgins; Jane Coad (25 August 2011). "Association of vitamin D receptor gene polymorphisms with insulin resistance and response to vitamin D.". Metabolism. 61 (3): 293–301. doi:10.1016/J.METABOL.2011.06.018. ISSN 0026-0495. PMID 21871642. Wikidata Q54352004.
* L M Tabe; C M Higgins; Warren McNabb; T J Higgins (1 January 1993). "Genetic engineering of grain and pasture legumes for improved nutritive value". Genetica. 90 (2–3): 181–200. doi:10.1007/BF01435039. ISSN 0016-6707. PMID 8119592. Wikidata Q40720576.
* Sean T S Wei; Donnabella C Lacap-Bugler; Maggie C.Y. Lau Vetter; et al. (20 October 2016). "Taxonomic and Functional Diversity of Soil and Hypolithic Microbial Communities in Miers Valley, McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica". Frontiers in Microbiology. 7: 1642. doi:10.3389/FMICB.2016.01642. ISSN 1664-302X. PMC 5071352. PMID 27812351. Wikidata Q37351955.
* Colleen M Higgins; Rhonda M Hall; Neena Mitter; Alan Cruickshank; Ralf G Dietzgen (1 February 2004). "Peanut stripe potyvirus resistance in peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.) plants carrying viral coat protein gene sequences". Transgenic Research. 13 (1): 59–67. doi:10.1023/B:TRAG.0000017166.29458.74. ISSN 0962-8819. PMID 15070076. Wikidata Q47802013.
* Higgins CM; Manners JM; Scott KJ (1 August 1985). "Decrease in Three Messenger RNA Species Coding for Chloroplast Proteins in Leaves of Barley Infected with Erysiphe graminis f. sp. hordei". Plant Physiology. 78 (4): 891–894. doi:10.1104/PP.78.4.891. ISSN 0032-0889. PMID 16664347. Wikidata Q47930912.