International Plant Breeding Seminar Series

NC State University’s Plant Breeding Consortium is pleased to announce its fifth virtual seminar series in International Plant Breeding.

Building a Global Platform

The spring series will consist of six seminars over the course of consecutive weeks beginning March 30 – May 4, 2023, on Thursdays from 11:00 am to 12:00 pm EST.

Our goal is to build a platform that would bring together a global community of persons directly or indirectly working in plant breeding, or with just the interest to learn about what is fueling plant breeding in different parts of the world. We would appreciate your help in forwarding this invitation to other colleagues and institutions that might be interested in attending or participating.

Please distribute in your respective institutions and with other colleagues. We look forward to your participation.
Dr. Carlos Iglesias, Director

Connecting plant breeders through
our international online seminar series

Scheduled Seminars

MARCH 30, 2023

Jeff Dunne (NC State University) Improving Breeding Efficiencies through the Deployment of Open-Source Web Applications

APRIL 6, 2023

Jean-Luc Jannink (Cornell University): The road to genomic prediction in cassava

APRIL 13, 2023

Guillaume Bauchet (Coop Liniere France) Flax breeding, from past to future, adapting to a changing environment

APRIL 20, 2023

Anete Pereira de Souza (UNICAMP) Plant Genetic Diversity: Integrated Strategy for Understanding, Exploiting and Conserving It

APRIL 27, 2023

Ruben Alvarez-Rellan (NC State University) Lessons from the genetics of local adaptation of native maize varieties and wild maize relatives

MAY 4, 2023

Robert Henry (The University of Queensland) Domestication of species using molecular means

Fund Our Work

Support our efforts to advance international plant breeding research, education, and outreach.

Give Now

Funds supporting the International Plant Breeding Enhancement Fund are collected and managed by The North Carolina Agricultural Foundation, Inc., a 501(c)3 non-profit, tax id 56-6049304. You will receive an official receipt for your donation.

Spring 2023 Speakers

Jeff Dunne

Jeff completed his undergraduate degree from Michigan State University in Crop and Soil Sciences with an emphasis in Turfgrass Management. Fun fact, while attending Michigan State University, Jeff played Division-I ice hockey for the Spartans and won a National Championship in 2007. He was also selected as an Academic All-American in 2008. After a brief stint in the professional hockey ranks, Jeff returned to Michigan State University and completed a master’s degree in Crop and Soil Sciences, focusing on Plant Breeding and Biotechnology. In 2012, moved to North Carolina and began his graduate work at North Carolina State University where he was accepted as a Monsanto Fellow in Plant Breeding. As a part of this fellowship program, Jeff completed a second master’s degree from the Institute for Advanced Analytics before continuing on to his PhD work with Dr. Susana Milla-Lewis in Turfgrass Breeding and Genetics where his research focused on bermudagrass shade and freezing tolerance. Following the completion of his PhD, Jeff worked with Dr. Jim Holland (USDA-ARS) in Maize Phenomics working on haplotype prediction methods in a nested association panel. In 2018, Jeff accepted a position as Assistant Professor in the Crop and Soil Sciences Department at North Carolina State University. Jeff is the Severn and Hampton Farms Endowed Fellow in Peanut Breeding and Genetics.

Jean-Luc Jannink

Jean-Luc Jannink is an Adjunct Professor at Cornell University’s School of Integrative Plant Science Plant Breeding and Genetics Section and a Research Geneticist at the USDA-ARS Robert W. Holley Center for Agriculture & Health. His primary focus is on developing statistical methods to use DNA markers in public sector small grains breeding.

Guillaume Bauchet

Guillaume Bauchet is a geneticist, agronomist and plant biologist. His work experience is in breeding program management, breeding software deployment, statistical genetics, R programming, and evaluation of genetic resources. He is familiar with the current software and molecular techniques including sequencing and genotyping and their use for phenotypic trait dissection.

Anete Pereira de Souza

Anete Pereira de Souza completed the Agronomic Engineering course at ESALQ/USP in 1984 and a PhD in Cellular and Molecular Biology – University of Paris XI (Paris-Sud) in 1992. Campinas, in the area of Plant Genetics. For the past 28 years, she has been teaching, researching and training undergraduate and graduate students at the State University of Campinas. She also supervised several undergraduates, graduates and young researchers (post-doctors) totaling more than 180 people trained in the Laboratory of Genetic and Molecular Analysis with her direct involvement. She coordinated different scientific projects involving genetics and genomics of plant species of agronomic and ecological interest, and microorganisms (fungi, bacteria and protists). She collaborates with different national and international groups (England, France, Germany, Holland, USA, Scotland) that work in the main areas of her research, namely, genetic variation in plants and fungi, through molecular improvement, biotechnology, genetics , genomics and bioinformatics. Collaboration in multidisciplinary research has always been privileged throughout her scientific career, providing the training of competent personnel in different areas of activity. She served on the FAPESP Area Advisory Committee (in two areas: Agrarian and Bioenergy) and at CAPES, being an Advisor in the area of Biological Sciences I (CB I). She also participated as an evaluator in the last 4 evaluations of postgraduate courses in the CB area I – Genetics, carried out by CAPES. At the time, is a member of the Advisory Committee of the area of Genetics (Plant Genetics) of CNPq (beginning in 2020). She worked in administration and management at Unicamp, having held different positions: Coordinator of the Postgraduate Course in Genetics and Molecular Biology at the Institute of Biology at Unicamp (2 terms), Director of the Center for Molecular Biology and Genetic Engineering at Unicamp (2 terms ) and Deputy Head of the Department of Genetics and Evolution. She also participated in the Advisory Committee of the IB / UNICAMP Congregation (6 terms), being president in 3 of them. She has participated in the Congregation of the Institute of Biology at Unicamp as a representative of the Full Professors in different periods, the last of which started in 2019 and is still in force. She also served as Secretary of the Brazilian Society of Genetics (one term).

Ruben Alvarez-Rellan

Ruben Alvarez-Rellan’s research focuses on deciphering the genetic and physiological mechanisms underlying metabolism reorganization in plants during adaptation to abiotic stresses including suboptimal temperatures and nutrient concentrations. The lab uses a combination of quantitative and population genetics together with high-precision metabolic phenotyping to identify loci that have been under selection during adaptation to particular environments and that are involved in the determination of metabolic traits. The lab then uses reverse genetics, and heterologous expression to functionally characterize the allelic effects of candidate genes. In particular, the lab is using maize glycerolipid remodeling during the process of maize adaptation to different highland environments across the Americas as our study system. Using the approaches above together with maize landrace mapping populations grown in highland and lowland common garden fields in México, the lab has identified loci that explain distinct glycerolipid patterns in highland maize. The lab is currently functionally characterizing these loci with the goal of understanding their contribution to maize adaptation to highland conditions and transferring beneficial alleles to modern maize varieties.

Robert Henry

Professor Henry, is a graduate of the University of Queensland, B Sc (Hons), Macquarie University, M Sc (Hons) and La Trobe University (Ph D). In 2000 Professor Henry was awarded a higher doctorate (D Sc) by UQ for his work on analysis of variation in plants.

He is currently Professor of Innovation in Agriculture. Before being appointed QAAFI Director (May 2010-September 2020), he was Director of the Centre for Plant Conservation Genetics at Southern Cross University, a centre which he established in 1996. Other previous positions held by Professor Henry include Research Director of the Grain Foods Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) (until 2010) and Research Program Leader in the Queensland Agricultural Biotechnology Centre (until 1996).

Professor Henry’s speciality research area is the study of agricultural crops using molecular tools. He is particularly interested in Australian flora and plants of economic and social importance and has led the way in research into genome sequencing to capture novel genetic resources for the diversification of food crops to deliver improved food products.