Spring 2024 International Plant Breeding Seminar Series

Dr. David Marshall is a retired Research Leader from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Agricultural Research Service (ARS) and NC State emeritus professor. Research areas include breeding and genetics of small grain crops (wheat, oat, barley, and triticale) for disease resistance. The focus was on the introgression of disease resistance from wild species into adapted genotypes. Marshall and his fellow USDA collaborators received the 2020 Gene Stewardship Award from the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative. Their research team contributions “have led to a diverse range of strategies to introduce and improve resistance to stem rust—particularly Ug99, a highly virulent disease first identified in East Africa in 1998.”

Dr. Rony Swennen obtained his PhD at KU Leuven, Belgium in 1984. After a brief research stay in the Canary Islands, Spain, he joined IITA in 1979 as the first scientist at IITA’s Highrainfall substation, Onne, Nigeria. There he started plantain research initially focusing on physiology in support of agronomy, and taxonomy. He initiated and run the plantain breeding programme that resulted in black sigatoka resistant plantain for which IITA was awarded the International King Baudouin Award. He collected worldwide banana and plantain varieties that laid the basis for the International Transit Centre of banana, Leuven, Belgium. In 1990 he became Senior lecturer at KU Leuven and by 1997 full professor. His Laboratory of Tropical Crop Improvement hosts the world banana collection, now the Alliance of CIAT and Bioversity International, with collaborations in 103 countries. Cryopreservation techniques were developed for banana and later for another 27 plant species. His group developed also the first transgenic bananas in the early 90s with field tests in 2 locations. He is a strong believer in phenotyping and therefore initiated a proteomics and transcriptomics platform. In 1995 he became member of the Royal Academy, Belgium and Honorary Research Fellow of Bioversity International. He received several international awards and a chieftaincy in Nigeria. Since February 2013 he leads the banana breeding program at IITA. The matooke breeding is done in Uganda, the mchare breeding in Tanzania and the plantain breeding in Nigeria. He leads a team of +60 staff. Research-index 62; Google scholar: h-index 73

Dr. Margaret Worthington is an Associate Professor at the University of Arkansas, Bumpers College of Horticulture. Worthington’s primary research interest is the development of improved blackberry, peach, nectarine, and muscadine grape cultivars. She also leads research on fruit genetics and molecular breeding and is especially interested in answering questions that lead to the development of molecular tools and modern breeding methods that will accelerate genetic gain and strengthen applied cultivar development programs.

Dr. Patrick Cumbie is the Director of Product Development at ArborGen Inc. He has been involved in forest research and development for 23 years and has largely focused on planning and implementing accelerated breeding programs in loblolly pine. Before joining ArborGen in 2010, Cumbie was a research forester for Weyerhaeuser Company and worked for the Cooperative Tree Improvement Program at NC State University.  In his current role, Cumbie is responsible for managing product development activities in the US and Brazil including breeding, seed production, and genomics.  He received his PhD in Forestry from NC State University and is an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Forestry & Environmental Resources.

Ramakrishnan (Ram) M. Nair (India) leads the WorldVeg global legume breeding program and the International Mungbean Improvement Network (IMIN). Ram has over 30 years of experience in managing and leading national and international projects. He began his career in 1986 as an Agricultural Officer (Extension) in the Department of Agriculture, Government of Kerala, India. He received his PhD with a specialization in plant breeding from Kerala Agricultural University, India. Ram spent ten years as a forage breeder at the South Australian Research and Development Institute (SARDI) in Adelaide and four years at the Department of Natural Resources and Environment, Victoria, Australia. There he researched a range of plant species including Medicago, Trifolium, Trigonella, Melilotus, Lolium and Atriplex. In 1998, Ram was seconded to the Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research, Aberystwyth, UK. He completed a Professional Management Program from the School of Business, University of Adelaide in 2010. Ram completed a course in 2019 on gender-responsive plant breeding organized by Makerere and Cornell Universities as part of their Gender-responsive Researchers Equipped for Agricultural Transformation (GREAT) project. His extensive publication record includes 120 peer-reviewed journal articles, 75 conference papers and 13 book chapters. He is a member of the International Legume Society, serves as the Regional Secretary (India) for the Society for Advancement of Breeding Research in Asia and Oceania (SABRAO), and is a member of the Editorial Board for the SABRAO Journal of Breeding and Genetics. In 2008, he won the SARDI Breakthrough Innovation Award and in 2018, Ram and his team won the WorldVeg Science of Excellence Award for their work on mungbean.

Dr. Gustavo Rodriguez works at the Instituto de Investigaciones en Ciencias Agrarias de Rosario (IICAR – CONICET – UNR), National Scientific and Technical Research Council in Argentina. Genetics and Plant Breeding are his expertise with a focus on tomato fruit traits. Rodriguez is also Professor at Facultad de Ciencias Agrarias, Universidad Nacional de Rosario.