I grew up in Cumming, GA, and my hobbies are reading, rock climbing, soccer, and fostering animals (though my husband cut me off after we adopted three stray cats!). At Berry College in Rome, GA, I pursued a B.S. in Biology and a minor in Spanish in 2016. My interest in plant breeding budded during my time as an undergraduate research assistant to Dr. Martin Cipollini in an American Chestnut Breeding Program. I helped screen chestnut trees for blight resistance, working towards the long-term goal of reintroducing this cultural and economic staple back to the eastern United States. With Dr. Cipollini’s encouragement, I found the confidence to apply to graduate school.
For graduate school, I was determined to pursue breeding research on a nutritious crop, in which improved yields would have a global impact on food security. I was given this opportunity by Dr. Peggy Ozias-Akins at the University of Georgia, where I completed my PhD in Plant Breeding, Genetics, and Genomics in 2021. I worked with collaborators in the U.S., Argentina, and Senegal to use wild peanut species to increase viral, fungal, and insect resistance in cultivated peanut to improve and protect peanut yields. Throughout graduate school, I served in many leadership roles in various professional societies, but the most important to my career path was the National Association of Plant Breeders. I highly recommend all plant breeding students to join! Through NAPB, I networked with many breeders in industry and academia, including my current boss Dr. Allen Van Deynze at UC Davis.
I was ecstatic to work as a postdoc for Dr. Van Deynze on the most fascinating research project! I work with a team of incredible researchers—Dr. Van Deynze, Dr. Alan Bennett, Dr. Bart Weimer and his graduate student Angel Avalos and undergraduate student Lindsay Rodgers—on maize landraces from Mexico that associate with a N2-fixing microbial community. Basically, these plants are able to recruit bacteria that fix nitrogen from the air to fertilize the plants! Our short-term goals are to better understand the maize genes that allow the plant to recruit and maintain this N2-fixing microbial community and to identify the most important members of the microbial community. Our long-term goal is to enable conventional maize, and potentially other cereal crops, to fix atmospheric N2 and to reduce dependence on synthetic fertilizer. This will result in profit gains for famers who will spend less on fertilizer and in increased food security for farmers who cannot afford or do not have access to fertilizer.
Driven by a passion to help feed people through crop improvement, I aspire to be a professor with a network of international collaborations and a research program aimed at alleviating food insecurity through plant breeding. I aim to be a professor mainly to mentor students. During graduate school, I mentored a high school student as part of the University of Georgia’s Young Scholars program, and I enjoyed encouraging a future plant breeder. I was inspired when my shy mentee improved his research and communication skills so much that he won second prize in the Young Scholars poster competition! Because of this experience, I want to become a professor to mentor students to help them fully realize of what they are capable.
My advice to future students is to find great mentors. They don’t have to be your major advisor, and you will need more than one mentor to fill different roles. Join professional societies and take leadership roles in their graduate committees. These positions allow you to rub shoulders with people who will hire you when you graduate! Apply for every opportunity you can. I especially recommend U.S. PhD students to apply for the NIFA predoctoral grant—this grant can change your life by funding your professional development. Lastly, keep battling imposter syndrome—remember that you are an amazing researcher! Keep striving to make the world a better, more food secure place.
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