Soybean

Sep. 9, 2018

Mariola Usovsky

Mariola is a passionate molecular soybean breeder and scientist with over 10 years of public soybean breeding experience. She is highly involved in the soybean breeding pipeline and release of many soybean cultivars. Her expertise includes introgression of traits that involve high oleic and low linolenic genes for improving soybean fatty acid composition, protein genes for increasing seed protein content, soybean cyst nematode resistance genes, and genes with tolerance to Liberty® and Enlist® herbicides. She works towards optimizing plant breeding schemes to help reduce costs and time. Moreover, Mariola develops strategic directions, goals, and plans for molecular research, and provides…

Sep. 9, 2018

Mandy Bish

Bish’s main research focus is the management of current and emerging pathogens to corn and soybean. Information generated from the research is applied to her extension programming efforts. She utilizes programs already in place, such as the Mizzou On-Farm Strip Trial Program to compliment small plot research that evaluates the efficacy of disease management practices either alone or in combination.   Bish also has an interest in exploring interactions among pathogens, disease management tactics, and the environment. This allows Bish to utilize her training in both basic and applied plant sciences. Improved understanding of these interactions and monitoring how interactions change over…

Aug. 21, 2018

Bing Yang

Bing’s group has used rice as a workhorse to develop genome editing technologies and demonstrate their promising potential as biotech tools for basic and applied research in rice and other crop plants. With the increasingly available sequences of many plant genomes, technologies for genome editing have become the most promising and popular tools for scientists to understand such complex genomes and precisely and quickly manipulate them for good. Genome editing technologies allow precise, targeted genomic changes. TALENs and CRISPR/Cas represent the state-of-the-art genome editing technologies and hold immense promise for defining the genetic and molecular basis for valuable traits, as…

July 30, 2018

Jason Gillman

Educational background Ph.D., Plant Molecular Biology, Cornell University B.S., Botany, Colorado State University…

July 30, 2018

Kristin Bilyeu

The project involves a molecular genetic approach for analysis and modification of soybean seed development and composition. Important gene targets for genetic modification include factors that have an impact on soybean oil and meal quality, such as fatty acid composition and oligosaccharide and phytic acid content. Included are elucidation of gene products and their control through forward and reverse genetics, interactions among themselves and the environment, and variation in expression in plant growth. The approach emphasizes developing molecular genetic and biochemical information to identify and characterize structural and regulatory genes that influence seed composition. The overall goal of the project…

July 30, 2018

Hari B. Krishnan

Hari Krishnan is a Research Molecular Biologist in Plant Genetics Research Unit of the USDA-Agricultural Research Service at Columbia, Missouri. He is also an Adjunct Professor in the Division of Plant Sciences at University of Missouri. Krishnan received a Ph.D. degree from Washington State University. He is internationally recognized for his significant contributions to the improvement of soybean protein quality and enhancement of biological nitrogen fixation. He has authored/co-authored 216 peer reviewed journal articles, 6 book chapters, 5 review articles and edited/co-edited two ASA monographs. He has numerous invitations to present his research at national and international conferences. He was…

Feb. 27, 2018

Kerry Clark

Kerry Clark was a soybean breeder from 1993-2012 and continues to work on the Feed the Future Soybean Innovation Lab, which is trying to improve soybean yields and production across sub-Saharan Africa. She runs a mechanization development and fabrication training team that includes three equipment designers from Ghana. This team has trained over 200 manufacturers in 12 African countries and has helped build service provision businesses so that small-holder farmers can have access to modern farming methods. Clark is also part of a multi-state collaboration working to improve available cover crop varieties for U.S. farmers. She teaches soil pedology, genesis,…

Feb. 26, 2018

Patrick Westhoff

Westhoff is the director of the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute (FAPRI) and a professor of agricultural and applied economics at the University of Missouri. He grew up on a small dairy and hog farm in northeast Iowa. After getting his undergraduate degree in political science from the University of Iowa, he served as Peace Corps volunteer in Guatemala.   He has a master’s degree in Latin American Studies from the University of Texas and a Ph.D. in agricultural economics from Iowa State University. From 1992-1996, he was an economist with the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, where…

Jan. 10, 2018

Gary Stacey

Gary Stacey is Curators’ Distinguished Professor and Professor of Plant Science and Technology at the University of Missouri-Columbia. His research focuses generally on molecular aspects of plant-microbe interactions, including studies of the beneficial legume-rhizobium symbiosis and plant-fungal pathogen interactions. He has also been instrumental in the development of genomic resources for the study of soybean. He has mentored 51 postdoctoral fellows and 36 Ph.D. and 8 M.S. graduate students. Past postdocs have gone on to start independent careers in academia (e.g., Michigan State Univ., Washington State Univ.), industry, as well as winning the 2005 USA National Medal of Technology, which…

Jan. 10, 2018

Andrew Scaboo

Educational background Ph.D., University of Arkansas, 2010…