Dr. Somers received his BS in Botany at Ohio University, an MSc. in Physiological Plant Ecology at the University of Alberta, and Ph.D. at the University of California -- Berkeley. After five years of post-doctoral training at the University of Virginia and the Scripps Research Institute he began his independent research effort at Ohio State University in 1999 in the Department of Plant Biology.

Dr. Somers’ research focuses on the molecular genetic bases of the plant circadian clock.  In particular the roles of post-translational processes such as proteolysis, protein modifications and protein stability are the main areas of investigation. Since 2010 he has also been on the faculty at Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH), South Korea as part of the South Korean WCU project where he maintains an additional laboratory and circadian research program.