Dr. Mike Gore is a professor of molecular breeding and genetics for nutritional quality, Liberty Hyde Bailey professor, and Chair of the Plant Breeding and Genetics Section in the School of Integrative Plant Science at Cornell University. Mike is also the Associate Director for Research Partnerships in CROPPS, the Center for Research on Programmable Plant Systems. He holds a BS and MS from Virginia Tech and a PhD from Cornell University. His expertise is in the field of quantitative genetics and genomics, especially the genetic dissection of metabolic seed traits related to nutritional quality. Additionally, Mike is a pioneer in the development and application of field-based, high-throughput phenotyping tools for plant breeding and genetics research.

Eric Psota is the Digital Innovation Manager at PIC North America. Since joining in 2021, he has been responsible for developing advanced technologies for digital phenotyping using computer vision and machine learning. Specifically, he specializes in multi-object tracking, pose estimation, animal identification, anomaly detection, real-time systems, and edge computing. Prior to joining PIC, he was a researcher at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where he remains on the faculty as an adjunct professor.

Mario Calus is an associate professor at the Animal Breeding and Genomics group of Wageningen University. He obtained both his MSc and PhD degree from Wageningen University. His main area of expertise is on genomic prediction and genomic selection, with an increasing focus on the use of functional annotations and intermediate omics data. He has more than seventeen years of experience in the scientific development of genomic selection, and its implementation in collaboration with the breeding industry, in recent years through the Dutch public-private partnership Breed4Food. He currently is the program leader of Breed4Food. He has supervised 11 PhD students, with an additional 5 ongoing, and has trained 7 postdocs. He has (co)authored more than 150 peer reviewed articles. He is Senior Editor for the section Complex Traits of GENETICS, and is one of the co-Editors-in-Chief of Genetics Selection Evolution.

Charlie Messina (PhD, University of Florida) is Professor in the Department of Horticultural Sciences at the University of Florida. His teaching and research program focuses on how to harmonize crop improvement and AI efforts for agricultural systems to regenerate the environment while providing nutrition security, improve human health and adapt to climate change. He leads a team that develops prediction methods by harnessing principles of crop science, dynamical systems modeling (symbolic AI), statistical learning (sub-symbolic AI) and complex systems theory. He collaborates with breeders, engineers, and agronomists to co-create systems within operational breeding programs.

Ermias Kebreab is Associate Dean and Professor of Animal Science at the University of California, Davis. He holds the Sesnon Endowed Chair in Sustainable Agriculture. He conducts research in animal nutrition, mathematical modeling of biological systems and impact of livestock on the environment. He is contributing author to 2019 IPCC update on enteric methane emissions. He co-chaired the feed additive and methane committees of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN. He has authored over 250 peer-reviewed articles and received several awards including Excellence in Ruminant Nutrition and International Agriculture from American Society of Animal Science, and 2022 Chancellor’s Innovator of the year award. He served on two committees of The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine on methane and nutrition of dairy cattle. He is a regular invited speaker including a TED talk that has been featured as one of the ‘must-watch climate talks of 2022’ by ted.com. His research was in the top 10 of all research conducted at the University of California system in 2021. He holds a B.S. degree from the University of Asmara, Eritrea and an M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Reading, U.K.

Giles Oldroyd studies the mechanisms by which plants form beneficial interactions with micro-organisms, both bacteria and fungi, that aid in the uptake of nutrients from the environment, including nitrogen. A long-term aim of this research is to reduce agricultural reliance on inorganic fertilisers and he currently heads an international programme funded by Bill & Melinda Gates Agricultural Innovations.

He completed his PhD in 1998 at the University of California, Berkeley, studying plant-pathogen interactions and then moved to Stanford University, USA, to work on nitrogen fixation in the laboratory of Prof. Sharon Long. After working 15 years as a group leader at the John Innes Centre in the UK, he moved to the University of Cambridge in 2017 and in 2019 was elected the Russell R Geiger Professor of Crop Sciences. In this role he directs the Crop Science Centre, an alliance between the University of Cambridge and NIAB. The Crop Science Centre strives to deliver transformative technologies that sustainably increase agricultural productivity for all the world’s farmers. In 2020 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and a member of EMBO and in 2021 he was elected foreign member of the National Academy of Sciences, USA.

Prof Ross Houston is Director of Genetics and Innovation at Benchmark Holdings. Benchmark is a leading aquaculture biotechnology company focused on products and solutions that improve farming efficiency and animal health. There he leads Benchmark Genetics’ global breeding programs for Atlantic salmon and whiteleg shrimp, as well as R&D activities, with a particular focus on applications of emerging technologies, including reproductive technologies and gene editing. He is also Chair of Benchmark Innovation Board, which fosters exploitation of synergies across the Genetics, Health, and Advanced Nutrition business units.

Ross has over 20 years of experience in applied genetics research in animal breeding, having formerly been Personal Chair of Aquaculture Genetics and the Deputy Director for Translation and Commercialisation at The Roslin Institute. He has authored or coauthored more than 110 scientific publications, as well as several patents. Ross has been at the forefront of application of new genomic and biotechnologies to towards genetic improvement in aquaculture, and has also published several high profile review and perspective papers on these topics, for example in Nature Reviews Genetics here https://www.nature.com/articles/s41576-020-0227-y.

Professor Xuelu Wang has long been engaged in the study of microbial interaction, biological nitrogen fixation, leguminous biology and plant hormone signal transduction networks and their mechanisms of regulating growth and development. He has published many important research papers and been cited more than 3,000 times. These research results have important biological significance and also provide important theoretical foundations and innovative methods for the development of green agriculture. At the same time, he has presided over projects of Outstanding Youth Fund, key fund, international cooperation and major research program integration fund, which are all supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China. He has also presided over the task of project of the Ministry of Science and Technology, and been rated as a young and middle-aged expert with outstanding contributions by the National millions of Talents Project. In addition, he enjoys a State Council special allowance.

Professor Wang lectured on such undergraduate and graduate courses as Plant Physiology, Cell Signal Transduction, Cell Biology and Developmental Biology. In addition, he is also a member of Biology Assessment Panel of the State Council; a member of the Biological Science Teaching Steering Committee of the Ministry of Education.

Howard has been involved with sustainable agricultural and agroforestry systems, pattern recognition, plant breeding, molecular biology and genetics for over 40 years releasing hundreds of cultivars into the public domain. He has worked with indigenous communities, NGO’s, governmental agencies and the private sector around the world. A former university professor for 15 years, Fulbright Scholar, Ford Foundation Fellow, in 2007 Howard was made a Fellow of the World Agroforestry Centre and authored the IAASTD chapter on Biotechnology and Biodiversity. He was a founding member of the Keystone Roundtable on Sustainable Agriculture, co-chair of the 1st and 2nd World Congress of Agroforestry and is Chairperson of the External Advisory Board of the Agriculture Sustainability Institute at UC Davis. In 2009 he was named recipient of The Award of Distinction from The College of agriculture and Environmental Sciences, UC Davis. He led the global effort sequencing, assembling and annotating the Theobroma cacao genome and is part of the leadership team for the Arachis genome global effort. In 2010 he was named a Senior Fellow, Plant Sciences, the University of California, Davis. September 2011, he announced the formation of the African Orphan Crops Consortium, set up to sequence, assemble and annotate 101 of the key African food crops in order to breed more nutritious plants. He as well set up the African Plant Breeding Academy with UC Davis at the World Agroforestry Centre in Nairobi which opened the 3rd of December 2013. He has served on both for profit and NGO boards.

He collects and restores classic American, modern Japanese and Italian motorcycles. He recently became a member of the 200 Mile Per Hour Club on an unrestricted 1999 Suzuki Hayabusa. Averaging 201.386 MPH.

Samuel Oyola is a senior Scientist at ILRI and head of GenomicScience. Samuel specializes in Genomics and Molecular Biology. He holds a PhD in Molecular and Cellular Biology from the University of Cambridge, UK. Before joining ILRI, he studied functional genomics of Leishmaniasis and host-parasite interaction as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of York, UK. He then took a Scientist position at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Cambridge UK, where he worked on malaria; developing and applying high throughput genomic technologies to study natural genetic variations in malaria parasite populations. He developed novel molecular tools that enable application and translation of genomic technologies into basic healthcare and public health applications. At ILRI, Samuel is using his experience and expertise in modern genomics, biotechnology and molecular biology to study several aspects of animal and human health. Under epidemiology, Samuel is using modern genomic and bioinformatic tools to study epidemiology of rift valley fever virus (RVFV), African swine fever virus (ASFV), Newcastle disease virus (NDV), Peste des petits ruminants virus (PPRV), SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) and Climate-aggravated infectious diseases such as those caused by Arboviruses. Under vaccine development, Samuel is employing his immunogenetics expertise to identify and develop potential vaccine antigens by profiling antibody immune (B-cell receptor repertoire) responses to candidate vaccine immunizations.  Samuel is also actively involved in developing Genomic Surveillance capacity in Africa.

Damaris Odeny is a plant molecular breeder with global research experience cutting across Africa, Asia, Europe and USA. She has led and implemented genomics projects in both cereals and legumes, including the development of genomic resources in several orphan crops. Damaris works closely with other disciplines from national, private and international institutes to develop cutting edge genomic resources for all ICRISAT mandate crops (sorghum, pearl and finger millet, groundnut, chickpea and pigeonpea) in her current role. Prior to this, she worked as a senior researcher at the Agricultural Research Council (ARC), South Africa, where she played a key role in establishing molecular breeding processes for indigenous vegetables. Damaris is also passionate about mentoring of young upcoming scientists and has successfully mentored more than fifty scientists in her career to date.

Damaris earned her PhD in Plant Genetics (2006) from the University of Bonn (Germany) and completed a post-doctoral training from the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research in 2009 in Cologne, Germany.

Areas of expertise: Qualitative and quantitative genetics; Genetic mapping; Pre-breeding; Plant genetic engineering; Mutation breeding; Statistical genomics; High throughput genotyping and marker development; Next Generation Sequencing and data analysis; Transcriptome analysis; Metagenomics.

Geoff Morris is an associate professor for Crop Genetics & Genomics at Colorado State University.  The goal of his  research program is to better understand the genomic basis of adaptation in crops and wild relatives. Through this he aims to gain insight on some fundamental mechanisms of crop adaptation and facilitate improvement of crop adaptive traits.

Nathan Springer received a PhD from the University of Minnesota in 2000 and his thesis research in Dr. Ron Phillips lab involved cloning of DNA methyltransferases from maize and analysis of anueploid-induced syndromes.  Nathan was a post-doctoral research in Shawn Kaeppler’s group at the University of Wisconsin-Madison working on functional genomics of maize chromatin.  He joined the faculty in the Department of Plant and Microbial Biology at the University of Minnesota in 2003.  Members of the Springer lab applied classical genetic, molecular genetic and genomic approaches to study natural variation for gene expression and chromatin in maize and have published >150 papers on these topics.  The Springer research group has also been involved in research on imprinting, heterosis and structural genomic variation in maize. In 2022 Nathan began a new position as the Head of Genetic and Genomic Innovation at Bayer Crop Sciences where he is involved in developing strategy to utilize genomic tools to improve plant breeding processes.

Professor Diane Suanders is the Head of the Department and Group Leader Delivering Sustainable Wheat (DSW), and Advancing Plant Health (APH). 

Diane’s research focuses on (re-)emerging plant pathogens that pose a significant threat to agriculture.

She has a particular interest in the wheat rust pathogens, which are known as the “polio of agriculture” due to the threat they pose to wheat production worldwide. This includes numerous projects studying the wheat yellow rust pathogen, Puccinia striiformis f.sp tritici that recently re-emerged as a major constraint on UK agriculture.

In Diane’s lab, they use an array of different approaches to study plant pathogens to improve our understanding of how pathogens cause disease. Current projects include:

• Developing new, innovative genomics-based tools to track and study pathogen dispersal on a national and international scale
• Understanding how pathogens evolve to evade host recognition and fungicide control
• Developing a better understanding of how specific host plants respond to pathogen invasion
• Unravelling the role of wild plants in the life cycle of the wheat rust pathogens in the UK

In one recent project, the group pioneered a revolutionary genomics-based pathogen surveillance technique called ‘field pathogenomics’ that uses the latest DNA sequencing technology to generate high-resolution data quickly for describing the diversity in a pathogen population directly from infected field samples. This information is essential to help breeders to develop wheat varieties that are resistant to the wider range of yellow rust isolates that they now find in the field.

Through international collaboration with CIMMYT and the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research this technique has been further developed into a portable platform called Mobile And Real-time PLant disEase (MARPLE) diagnostics that is allowing scientists in Ethiopia to track the spread of individual strains of wheat yellow rust in near real-time. This in turn enables stakeholders to make immediate decisions regarding disease management within the current growing season.

Diane’s fundamental research has provided new knowledge on how pathogens successfully invade susceptible plant hosts and influence a host plant’ s circuitry during infection. For instance, developing a framework for a better understanding of how wheat yellow rust causes disease by uncovering new information on how the pathogen suppresses the expression of defence components in wheat to successfully colonise a susceptible host.

Diane is also passionate about training the next-generation of plant scientists and runs training courses and workshops internationally (particularly in bioinformatics) to empower early-career researchers in regions where tuition is limited.

Professor Xiaohong Yang, with the Chinese Agricultural University Research of Special Interest:

Our research interests focus on maize grain yield and nutritional quality.   We aim to dissect the genetic architecture of the traits related to grain yield and nutritional quality in maize by QTL mapping and association mapping. We are also interested in cloning the QTLs controlling the traits related to grain yield and nutritional quality, mining favorable alleles and understanding molecular mechanism. Finally, we aim for the improvement of maize grain yield and nutritional quality by molecular breeding using the identified genes or favorable alleles.

Professor Cathie Martin is a Group Leader at the John Innes Centre and Fellow of the Royal Society.

research interests lie in using plant science to improve human diet and health.

She is particularly interested in biofortification and using plant metabolic engineering to enhance foods nutritionally.

Much of Cathie’s work has been undertaken in tomatoes, enriching their nutrient content with, for example, resveratrol and anthocyanin.

Cathie collaborates to test these enhanced foods in intervention studies and also undertakes studies into how these modified fruits have improved shelf-life and reduced susceptibility to grey mould, Botrytis cinerea.

• Biofortification of fruit and vegetables for human health
• Metabolic engineering to enhance phytonutrients such as anthocyanins and resveratrol
• Improving the shelf-life of fruit and vegetables

Cathie and her group have recently been co-ordinating research into the relationship between diet and health, and how crops can be fortified to improve diets and address the global challenge of escalating chronic disease. This work has involved linking leading clinical and epidemiological researchers with plant breeders and metabolic engineers to develop scientific understanding of how diet can help to maintain health, lead to healthy ageing and reduce the risk of chronic disease.

This has included research into plants which contain natural chemical compounds, some of which are seen as ‘natural medicines.’ Cathie is particularly interested in phenolic compounds present in fruit and vegetables which are considered to be the main ‘active ingredients’ of many ‘super foods’ and ‘super drinks’.

Cathie’s fundamental research has also focused on cellular specialisation and she was the first to identify genes regulating cell shaping in plants. She is currently investigating how specially shaped cells adapt plants to their environment.

Cathie is also interested in cellular specialisation in flowers (colour and cell shape) and how these traits are used by different plants for pollinator attraction.

She has also been involved in developing genetic screens to identify crops which lack toxins that cause nutritional diseases such as konzo and neurolathyrism.

• Purple tomatoes
• Blood oranges
• Natural products
• Landing lights for bees

Professor Hayes has extensive research experience in genetic improvement of livestock, crop, pasture and aquaculture species, with a focus on integration of genomic information into breeding programs, including leading many large scale projects which have successfully implemented genomic technologies in livestock and cropping industries. Author of more than 250 journal papers, including in Nature Genetics, Nature Reviews Genetics, and Science, contributing to statistical methodology for genomic, microbiome and metagenomic profile predictions, quantitative genetics including knowledge of genetic mechanisms underlying complex traits, and development of bioinformatics pipelines for sequence analysis. Thomson Reuters highly cited researcher in 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018.

Elinor Karlsson, PhD, is associate professor in Bioinformatics and Integrative Biology at the UMass Chan Medical School, and director of Vertebrate Genomics at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. Her research combines new technology, community science and genomics to investigate diseases and discover the origins of exceptional mammalian traits.  Dr. Karlsson’s research includes the Zoonomia project, an international effort to compare the genomes of over 240 mammals (from the African Yellow-spotted Rock Hyrax to the Woodland Dormouse), to identify segments of DNA that are important for survival and health.  Dr. Karlsson has a special interest in dog genetics, and her international Darwin’s Ark project invites all dog owners to enroll their dogs in an open data research project exploring the genetic basis of behavior, as well as diseases such as cancer.

Elinor received her B.A. in biochemistry/cell biology and her B.F.A. (Bachelor of Fine Arts) from Rice University, and earned her Ph.D. in bioinformatics from Boston University. She was a postdoctoral fellow with Pardis Sabeti at Harvard University before starting her research group at UMass Chan in 2014.

Associate Professor at the University of Georgia

Daniela Lourenco is an Associate Professor in Animal Breeding, Genetics, and Genomics at the University of Georgia in the United States. She has been working in this field since 2004 and her current interests include the use of genomic information to increase rates of genetic progress, the development of methods for genomic evaluations, and the use of computational algorithms to analyze large data. Her research group has been working on genomic selection in beef and dairy cattle, swine, poultry, and fish. They have been involved in the development and implementation of single-step genomic evaluations for several breeding companies and breed associations. The software and algorithms developed by her group are being used for genomic evaluations around the world.

Xiaofeng Cao, principle investigator at the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, is a geneticist recognized for her work on epigenetic regulation in higher plants. She is known particularly for her studies on dynamic histone methylation, small RNA as well as arginine methylation controlling transposon activities govern genome stability and affecting genome-wide co-transcriptional and post-transcriptional regulation during development.

Xiaofeng was born and grew up in Beijing, China. She has a bachelor’s in applied biochemistry from Peking University in 1988, a master’s in biochemistry from China Agricultural University in 1991, and a PhD from the College of Life Sciences, Peking University in 1997. She was a postdoctoral research fellow at Washington State University and a research associate at the University of California, Los Angeles. She became a PI in 2003 at the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology (IGDB), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). She has led the Center for Genome Biology at IGDB and is the co-director of the Centre of Excellence for Plant and Microbial Science, jointly established by CAS and the John Innes Centre (UK). She was elected CAS Academician, a TWAS Fellow, a member of IEAS, and International member of National Academy of Sciences. She is a member of the National Committee of CPPCC.

Dr. Jack Dekkers, Distinguished Professor in the Department of Animal Science at Iowa State University focuses his research on quantitative and statistical genetics, including the integration of quantitative and molecular genetics and genomics for QTL mapping, genome-wide association studies, and genomic prediction and selection; design and economic aspects of breeding programs for livestock.

Director General, International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI),
Senior Director, CGIAR Livestock-based systems.
Professor Appolinaire Djikeng is Director General of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and Senior Director for the Livestock-based systems of the CGIAR. At ILRI and the CGIAR he leads the premier global

Appolinaire has expertise and interest in Genomics with applications in agriculture (both animals and crops), Human and environmental health. Appolinaire serves on numerous science advisory boards and has received many awards including the Nelson Mandela Peace Award.

Prior to ILRI, Appolinaire was Director of the Centre for Tropical Livestock Genetics and Health (CTLGH) and based at the Roslin Institute and Chair for Tropical Agriculture and Sustainable Development at the University of Edinburgh. He has over 20 years’ research and institutional experience in academia and in international not for profit research institutions in the USA, Africa and UK.

Appolinaire is affiliated with The Roslin Institute, The University of Edinburgh (UK) as Professor, with the University of South Africa, College of Agriculture, and environmental science as Distinguished Professor, and with the University of Queensland, Center for Animal Science (Australia) and Honorary Professor.

Dr. Alison Van Eenennaam is a Cooperative Extension Specialist in the field of Animal Genomics and Biotechnology in the Department of Animal Science at University of California, Davis.  She received a Bachelor of Agricultural Science from the University of Melbourne in Australia, and both an MS in Animal Science, and a PhD in Genetics from UC Davis. Her publicly-funded research and outreach program focuses on the use of animal genomics and biotechnology in livestock production systems. Her current research projects include the development of genome editing approaches for cattle. She serves as the bovine genome coordinator for the USDA National Animal Genome Research Program, and is an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). She has given over 650 invited presentations to audiences globally, and uses a variety of media to inform general public audiences about science and technology. She frequently provides a credentialed voice on controversial scientific topics, and has appeared on national media including The Dr Oz Show, NPR, Science Friday, and the Intelligence Squared debate series. She appeared in the 2017 documentary “Food Evolution” narrated by science-communicator Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson. A passionate advocate of science, Dr. Van Eenennaam was the recipient of the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) 2010 National Award for Excellence in Extension, American Society of Animal Science (ASAS) 2014 National Extension Award, the Council for Agricultural Science and Technology (CAST) 2014 Borlaug Communication Award, University of California – Davis 2019 James H. Meyer Distinguished Career Achievement Award, and ASAS 2019 Rockefeller Prentice Award in Animal Breeding and Genetics.

Michel Georges is Professor in Genetics and Genomics at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine of the University of Liège in Belgium.  He heads the Unit of Genetics of the GIGA Research Institute in the same university.  Georges was born in Antwerp, Belgium in 1959.  He obtained his DVM degree at the University of Liège in 1983, followed by a degree in Molecular Biology at the Free University of Brussels in 1985.  From 1985 to 1988 he worked in the laboratories of Gilbert Vassart at the Free University of Brussels and Roger Hanset at the University of Liège. He obtained is habilitation from the University of Liège in 1991.  From 1989 to 1993 he was senior scientist, then director of research at Genmark Inc. and adjunct professor in the Department of Human Genetics in Salt Lake City, Utah.  Since 1994 he has been heading the Unit of Animal Genomics at the University of Liège. He played an instrumental role in establishing the GIGA Research Institute.  Georges was awarded the Wolf Prize in Agriculture in 2007, and the Francqui Prize in Biomedical Sciences in 2008.

Sarah Hearne, principal scientist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), focuses on identification and application of native genetic variation for crop improvement. Working with multi-disciplinary teams she explores, harnesses, re-combines and develops applications in the areas of genomics, informatics and biometrics, in order to leverage data synergies and more efficiently and effectively identify and use high value genetic variation in targeted breeding.

She currently leads Seeds of Discovery initiative (SeeD) of CIMMYT and the trait discovery and deployment space of the Excellence in Breeding Platform. Her science is complemented by emphasis on data management and equitable, IP-sensitive knowledge sharing; facilitating access to data, tools, services, germplasm, advice and training for other researchers and breeders.

Charles Johnson is director and founder of the Texas A&M AgriLife Genomics and Bioinformatics Service (TxGen), a multimillion-dollar agrigenomics research unit within Texas A&M AgriLife Research, part of the Texas A&M System. The center conducts next-generation sequencing and bioinformatics research with collaborators in 42 countries, working with hundreds of different groups including other universities and companies. His current internal research is centered around low-cost high throughput genotyping methods supporting AgriGenomics.

Dr. Johnson grow up on a farm in Northern Michigan, receiving his PhD from Texas A&M University and has worked for more than two decades in genomics and bioinformatics research, leading highly successful research teams in both industry and academia.

Renee Lafitte is Deputy Director for Crops R&D in the Agricultural Development group at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. She has a background in crop physiology, agronomy, and agro-ecology, with experience in technology discovery and product development for both intensive agriculture and resource-limited cropping systems. Prior to her current appointment, Renee was a Research Fellow at DuPont Pioneer and then at DowDuPont, where she focused on application of new phenotyping and remote sensing technologies for crop improvement, gene discovery, and the evaluation of new microbial and crop protection products. Previously, Renee worked for 20 years in the CGIAR system, based at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines, and at the Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in Mexico.

Nathan Lakey is President and Chief Executive Officer of Orion Genomics, a company bringing cutting edge scientific expertise, innovation, proprietary technologies and commercial and academic partnerships throughout the globe to change how the world approaches feeding, fueling and healing itself. Lakey was awarded the top 40 under 40 award (2004 St. Louis), presented the governor’s top technology award (2005 Missouri), and he currently serves as Chairman of the Investment Advisory Committee, Biogenerator, and on the Patient Care Committee of the Board of Missouri Baptist Hospital. He has more than 20 years of experience in genomics. Prior to the founding of Orion Genomics, he was Director of DNA Sequencing at Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Inc., in Cambridge, Massachusetts (1994-98), where he built and operated Millennium’s DNA sequencing platform, and helped form three strategic business units – Millennium Predictive Medicine, Millennium Biotherapeutics and Cereon Inc. Before joining Millennium, Mr. Lakey held various positions with Molecular Dynamics (Sunnyvale, CA), Ambion Inc (Austin TX) and Harvard Medical School, Department of Genetics, in George Church’s laboratory. Mr. Lakey received a B.A. in Biochemistry from the University of Texas (Austin), and an MBA from Washington University Olin School of Business (St. Louis) where he received the C. William Emory Executive MBA Award. Mr. Lakey holds multiple issued patents in the U.S. and abroad.

Susan McCouch is the Barbara McClintock Professor of Plant Breeding and Genetics in the School of Integrative Plant Science at Cornell University. She also serves as Director of the Cornell Initiative for Digital Agriculture. She received her PhD from Cornell in 1990 and spent 5 years with the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines before joining the Cornell faculty in 1995. She is known for developing the first molecular genetic map of rice and for her key and sustained role in turning rice into a model for genetics and breeding research. Her work provides a critical foundation for rapid trait identification and cultivar development, and her contribution to the development of databases and software tools has facilitated the sharing of data and accelerated rice breeding worldwide. In collaboration with USDA colleagues, her group released the first red-pericarp rice variety in the US in 2018. She currently serves as founding member and Chair of the Board of Directors for the DivSeek International Network, a not-for-profit member-driven organization dedicated to the characterization and use of genetic variation in crop improvement.  She has been recognized with numerous awards, including the Presidential Award from the Crop Science Society of America (2016), an Honorary Ph.D. from Tamil Nadu Agricultural University in India (2015), the Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities (2012), the Golden Sickle Award for the advancement of international rice research (2007), and the Outstanding Faculty Award from the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell (2006), and has contributed extensively to educational initiatives and international outreach. She is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a recently elected member of the National Academy of Sciences.

Dr. Len Pennacchio is a Senior Scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (LBL), Deputy Director of the Joint Genome Institute, and Adjunct Professor at the University of California Berkeley. He received his PhD in Genetics from Stanford University and served as an Alexander Hollaender Distinguished Fellow at LBL. He has authored over 140 publications and received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) from the White House for his contributions to the Human Genome Project and understanding mammalian gene regulation in vivo. Dr. Pennacchio has an extensive background in mammalian genetics and genomics as well as with DNA sequencing technologies and their application to address outstanding issues in both the biomedical, energy, and environment sectors. He serves in numerous advisory roles such as NHGRI’s Genome Sequencing Program and the Centre for Genomic Research at the University of Liverpool and is an Instructor for the Leena Peltonen School of Human Genomics. He also is an Organizer and Co-Chair of both annual Advances in Genome Biology & Technology (AGBT) meetings as well as a “Systems Biology of Gene Regulation and Genome Editing” meeting hosted by Cold Spring Harbor Asia. Currently his research is heavily focused on understanding the spectrum of DNA mutations that contribute to human disease through in vivo functional studies.

Bruce Walsh is a professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at the University of Arizona.  He is coauthor (with Mike Lynch) of the two leading graduate textbooks on quantitative genetics (Lynch & Walsh 1998 Genetics and Analysis of Quantitative Traits; Walsh & Lynch 2018  Evolution and Selection of Quantitative Traits).

Susan Wessler is Distinguished Professor of Genetics and the Neil and Rochelle Campbell Chair for Innovation in Science Education at the University of California Riverside. In 2011 she was elected Home Secretary of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS), the first women to hold this position in its 150-year history. She is a plant molecular geneticist known for her contributions to the field of transposon biology and plant genome evolution. A native of New York City, she received a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Cornell University (1980) and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Carnegie Institution of Washington (1980-1982). She began her career at the University of Georgia in 1983 where she remained until moving to UC Riverside in 2010.

Wessler has contributed extensively to educational and diversity initiatives.  As a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor (2006), she adapted her research program for the classroom by developing the Dynamic Genome (DG) Course where incoming freshman can experience the excitement of scientific discovery. The DG course is currently taken by over 500 students/year.  As NAS Home Secretary, she has spearheaded initiatives that have led to a 40% increase in the number of women elected to membership in the NAS.

She is the recipient of several awards including the Stephen Hales Prize (2011) from the American Society of Plant Biologists, the Excellence in Science Award from FASEB (2012) and the McClintock Prize for Plant Genetics and Genome Studies (2015). She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences (1998), the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2007), the American Philosophical Society (2013), and a Foreign Member of the Royal Society (2017).