Peter Langridge
Chair of the Scientific Board
Peter chairs the Scientific Board of the Wheat Initiative and the Australian National Committee for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. He is Professor Emeritus at the University of Adelaide, Honorary Professor at Murdoch University, a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Science and Engineering and Honorary Fellow of Food Standards Australia and New Zealand. He is also a member of the Order of Australia. His research has focused on the role of genetic technologies in crop improvement.
Sylvie Cloutier
Co-Chair of the Scientific Board
A scientist with AAFC since 1995, Sylvie’s research focuses on genetics, genomics and epigenetics of wheat and wild relatives. She leads a pre-breeding program in wheat to identify new sources of disease resistance from wild relatives and coordinates a national phenotyping program in both winter and spring Triticum and Aegilops species.
HANS BRAUN
Hans led the joint TÜRKİYE/CIMMYT/ICARDA winter wheat programme based in Türkiye from 1985-2005. He was the director of CIMMYT’s Global Wheat Program in Mexico from 2005 until his retirement in 2021. . . Hans is familiar with wheat-based cropping systems worldwide.
Fernanda Dreccer
Fernanda serves as a Principal Research Scientist at CSIRO in Australia. She holds an Agronomy Engineer degree from University of Buenos Aires (Argentina) and an MSc and PhD from Wageningen University (The Netherlands). Her research is focused on delivering knowledge and germplasm to support adaptation and sustainable crop production in our extremely variable and changing environments. Linking crop physiology, genetics and agronomy, her team seeks to untangle complex interactions between crops, environment, and farm practices to deliver practical tools that reduce risk and improve performance on-farm. Fernanda was chairing the Wheat Initiative Expert Working Group on the Adaptation of Wheat to Abiotic Stress until the beginning of 2024.
FIONA DOOHAN
Fiona is Professor of Plant Health at University College Dublin, Ireland. Her research is focused on developing environmentally sustainable means of increasing cereal resilience, resistance to disease, and nutritional content. She is also co-founder of the company CropBiome, focused on developing biologicals for the enhancement of crop productivity. She has attracted over 20-million-euros of funding for her research programme and over 10 million for national doctoral training, supervised over 32 doctoral students and published over 100 peer-reviewed papers. She was a recipient of the UCD Innovation Award in 2021, was listed in the top 100 female Irish scientists and was elected a member of the Royal Irish Academy in 2022.
Julie King
Julie is Professor of Cereal Genetics at the University of Nottingham, UK and Research Director of the Nottingham Wheat Research Centre. Her work is focused on transferring genetic diversity for agronomically and scientifically important traits from wild and distantly related species into wheat, and to distribute the germplasm generated world-wide for exploitation in breeding programmes and in scientific research.
Flavio Breseghello
Flavio is a plant breeder and geneticist with a PhD from Cornell University. He has had a distinguished career at Embrapa, Brazil, and is currently the Director of the Global Wheat Program at CIMMYT. At Embrapa, Flavio held scientific roles as rice breeder, germplasm curator, and data manager, contributing to the development and release of several major varieties. He also dedicated 10 years to institutional management, serving as Head of R&D and Director General of Embrapa Rice and Beans. As the director of CIMMYT's wheat program, Flavio is dedicated to promoting the translation of cutting-edge technologies into products that will significantly enhance global food security and improve livelihoods.
Hisashi Tsujimoto
Hisashi specialises in germplasm enhancement by introducing genes from wheat-related species (Prebreeding). Further fields include wheat taxonomy and evolutionary research, wide hybridization and chromosome engineering, and breeding for climate change adaptation and mitigation.
CHRIS BURT
Chris provides a strategic lead for teams providing support to global wheat breeding programmes at RAGT. This includes genotyping, genomics, glasshouse services, end-use quality testing, and pathology. He is also responsible for both internal and collaborative research and development as RAGT strive to improve their understanding of wheat genetics and to be more efficient in their breeding processes.
ROBERTO TUBEROSA
Roberto Tuberosa, Department of Agricultural and Food Sciences, University of Bologna