Session Speakers/Panellists

Dr. Maricelis Acevedo is a Research Professor at Cornell University in the School of Integrative Plant Science. She is also the Associate Director of the Wheat Diseases Early Warning Advisory Systems (DEWAS) and the Director of Science for the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative. Dr. Acevedo works with wheat scientists worldwide to monitor the movement and evolution of wheat rust pathogens and other significant wheat pathogens to reduce the risk of pathogens epidemics and inform variety development and resistance gene deployment.

Dr Agumya is Executive Director of the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA), Ghana. Initially joining FARA as a Programme Officer for one of its flagship programmes, the sub-Saharan Africa Challenge Programme (SSA-CP), Dr Agumya has gone on to play a pivotal role in FARA’s most significant achievements over the past two decades.

Alison Bentley is an applied crop scientist working in genetics and plant breeding spanning fundamental understanding of plant processes through to the development of field- and farm-level decision support tools. She primarily works on wheat as a major staple food crop and has experience in a range of research environments in Australia, the UK and Mexico.

Dr. Pooja Bhatnagar Mathur is the Laboratory Head of Plant Breeding and Genetics at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Austria. With a PhD in Biotechnology, Dr. Mathur has over 20 years of experience in the field of cell and tissue technologies, associated biotechnologies for genome designs, precision genetics, and speed breeding methods for improving the precision and efficiency of breeding programs.

Professor Eric Yirenkyi Danquah is a Professor of Plant Genetics at the University of Ghana’s College of Basic and Applied Sciences. He is a former director of the Biotechnology Centre at the University of Ghana and the founding director of the West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement, which was established to train a new generation of plant breeders to develop improved varieties of staple crops.

Dr Laura Dixon is an Associate Professor in Crop Genetics and Physiology and UKRI Future Leader Fellow at the University of Leeds, UK. Her research group works to understand how cereals respond to temperature signals and uses this knowledge to adapt and increase the robustness of the plants’ developmental response to these signals. The group’s work combines fundamental discovery science at the molecular and genetic level, with the translation of this into realistic in-field environments.

Dr Melissa Garcia is a Senior Scientist at Inari Agriculture in Massachusetts, USA. Prior to her role at Inari Agriculture, she worked with the University of Adelaide’s ARC Industrial Transformation Research Hub for genetic diversity and molecular breeding for wheat in a hot and dry climate, where she led a program looking at germplasm development for genetic diversity, mostly through the use of a nested association mapping population.

Dr Monika Garg is a Senior Scientist at the National Agri-Food Biotechnology Institute, Mohali, India. Her core research interest is in genetics and plant breeding for human nutritional improvement, and she has developed three lines of healthier wheat, namely black, blue, and purple wheat. Prior to her current role, Dr Garg worked at the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas in Syria, and at Tottori University in Japan.

Dr. Carlos Guzman is a wheat quality expert currently working for the University of Cordoba in Spain, where he moved after working for CIMMYT in Mexico for eight years. He has conducted research and breeding projects through collaborations with several groups and companies around the world about diverse wheat quality topics related with the genetic improvement of processing, end-use and nutritional quality.

Dr Ravi Khetarpal is the Executive Director of the Asia Pacific Association of Agricultural Research Institutions (APAARI) in Bangkok, Thailand. In his current role, Dr Khetarpal uses his expertise in strategic planning, partnerships, and institutional growth to facilitate and promote networking, capacity building, knowledge management, policy issues and partnerships among countries and Institutions in the region.

Professor Beat Keller is the Head of the Molecular Plant Biology Phytopathology Group in the Department of Plant and Microbial Biology at the University of Zurich, Switzerland. Throughout his career, he has extensively contributed to wheat genomics research and the molecular study of wheat resistance to fungal pathogens. His work on the wheat genome within the framework of the International Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium led to the production of the first high-quality wheat genome sequence.

Professor Julie King is the Scientific Director of the Nottingham BBSRC Wheat Research Centre in the UK. The Nottingham BBSRC Wheat Research Centre is considered as one of the main centres worldwide specialising in the generation of wheat-wild relative introgressions. Prof King’s main research interest is focused on transferring genetic variation for agronomically and scientifically important traits from wild and distantly related species into wheat, and distributing the germplasm generated worldwide for exploitation in breeding programmes and in scientific research.

Dr Karta Kaske Kalsa is the Director of the Source Technology Multiplication and Seed Research Directorate of the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR). He has extensive experience in research in seed science and technology, particularly in a developing country context. He has participated in various seed policy-related activities in Ethiopia and has led developmental research across a multitude of capacities.

Dr John Kirkegaard is the Chief Research Scientist at CSIRO Agriculture, Australia. He joined CSIRO as an agronomist to improve the productivity and sustainability of dry-land mixed farming systems in southeast Australia, and through his research on soil-plant interactions, he has developed innovative new approaches to improve farm productivity. Currently, Dr Kirkegaard applies his expertise in agricultural research to develop practical solutions to Australian farming challenges, such as producing more crops with fewer inputs whilst protecting the environment.

Haydn Kuchel is the CEO and Head of Breeding at Australia’s largest wheat breeding company, Australian Grain Technologies and an adjunct Professor at the University of Adelaide. Haydn began his wheat breeding career in 2002 while completing a PhD on the application of molecular markers in wheat breeding. Since then, he has enjoyed the challenge of applying new technologies to AGT’s breeding programmes to drive higher rates of genetic gain.

Dr Yoshihiro Matsuoka is a Professor at the Graduate School of Agricultural Science at Kobe University, Japan. As a plant geneticist, Dr Matsuoka uses Triticum and Aegilops as a model system to study the mechanisms for polyploid species formation. His current research interests include understanding how wild wheat populations are structured, investigating the adaptive mechanisms in wild wheats, exploring the genetic and ecological nature of the origins of common wheat, and finding ways to better utilise wheat genetic resources in breeding.

Professor Frank Ordon is the President of the Julius Kühn-Institute (JKI), Germany’s Federal Research Centre for Cultivated Plants. His background is in classical and molecular plant breeding, with a special emphasis on breeding for resistance against viral and fungal pathogens in barley and wheat. His primary contributions include genetic analyses of resistance and the development of molecular markers for major resistance genes and QTL, especially against virus diseases, up to gene isolation

Dr Himanshu Pathak is the Secretary of the Department of Agricultural Research and Education (DARE) within India’s Ministry of Agriculture and Welfare, and the Director General of the Indian Council of Agriculture and Research (ICAR). His research on soil science, climate change, environmental pollution and abiotic stress management has been internationally recognised, and he is closely associated with agricultural research and development in India and abroad.

Dr Curtis Pozniak is the Director of the University of Saskatchewan’s Crop Development Centre in Canada, and a Professor of wheat genetics, genomics and breeding . A world leader in the application of wheat genomics to cultivar improvement, Dr Pozniak has released 18 new varieties since 2003 and has seen more than 170 research papers published in peer-reviewed journals. His breeding program is fully integrated with his genomics research program which focuses on development of pangenomic resources to support wheat cultivar development.

Adj/Prof Cathy Reade is the Director of Outreach and the NextGen Program at the Crawford Fund and is a Board Member and Chair of the Corporate Governance Committee at ICRISAT. She is also an Adjunct Professor at the Centre for Crop and Food Innovation and the State Agricultural and Biotechnology Centre at Murdoch University, Australia. Adj/Prof Reade was on the Board and Executive Committee of the World Vegetable Center from 2014-2019 and chaired their Nominations Committee.

Professor Matthew Reynolds is a Distinguished Scientist and Head of Wheat Physiology at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT). At CIMMYT he’s helped create a new generation of advanced lines based on physiological breeding approaches to widen the wheat gene pool globally, increased physiological understanding of wheat yield potential, adaptation to heat and drought and stress and pioneered the application of high throughput phenotyping methodologies in research and breeding.

A native of Central Mexico, Ms. Saavedra-Bravo has worked extensively in the field of International Cooperation. She has been the Programme Manager of the Wheat Initiative since November 2019. She obtained a scholarship from the Italian Government to complete a Master’s Degree in Business Communications at the Università Cà Foscari di Venezia.

roup Leader, John Innes Centre Professor Cristóbal Uauy is a Group Leader in wheat genetics and genomics at the John Innes Centre in Norwich, UK. His programme focuses on using genetics and genomics to improve both yield and quality components in wheat. His lab uses molecular genetic approaches to identify genes involved in wheat productivity traits and enhance the translation of this knowledge into improved varieties for farmers, industry and consumers.

A/Prof Brande Wulff is an Associate Professor of Plant Science at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Saudi Arabia. As a molecular plant pathologist and geneticist, he uses DNA sequencing and bioinformatics to identify genes restricting wheat rust. His research has led to the development of new and efficient methods for gene discovery and cloning, which use mutant and natural populations followed by sequence alignment to locate genes.

Professor Xue Yong Zhang is the Head of the Wheat Genome Diversity Research Group at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS). Prior to joining CAAS, he was Chief Scientist for the Discipline of Crop Gene Resources and Germplasm Enhancement at the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture, a Committee Member of the National Key Lab of Plant Cell and Chromosome Engineering, and a member of the National Wheat Innovation Team.