Meet the 2024 Organizing Committee
Maybell Banting
Position: Co-Chair
Advisors: Dr. Jennifer Kimball
Research Focus: Cultivated wild rice genomics
Maybell is a second year Ph.D. student in the Applied Plant Sciences Program. She is currently working with Jennifer Kimball in the Cultivated Wild Rice Breeding and Genetics Laboratory. Maybell's research focuses on building genomic resources for cultivated wild rice, primarily the species' transcriptome assembly improvement, gene expression atlas, constructing genetic maps, and developing KASP markers.
Alejandra Quinones
Position: Co-Chair
Advisor: Cory D. Hirsch
Research Focus: Abiotic Stress Multiomics
Alejandra is a second year PhD student in the Applied Plant Sciences program working in the Stress Biology Lab. Her research focuses on studying the response of a diverse maize germplasm to individual and combined abiotic stresses through a holistic approach that integrates high throughput phenomics, transcriptomics and ionomics to study how these stresses affect different aspects of plant growth.
Maicy Vossen
Position: Website/ Social Media Coordinator, Advertisement
Advisors: Dr. Walid Sadok and Dr. Eric Watkins
Research Focus: Winterhardiness in Perennial Ryegrass
Maicy is a second-year PhD student in the Applied Plant Sciences Program at UMN in the Department of Agronomy and Plant Genetics. Her research aims to develop a high throughput phenotyping method to evaluate winter hardiness in perennial ryegrass. Outside of her studies, Maicy enjoys fitness, painting and reading new books.
Lori Croghan
Position: Committee member
Advisors: Dr. Alan Smith and Dr. Neil Anderson
Research Focus: Gene drive for invasive tansy
Lori is a second year masters student in the Applied Plant Sciences graduate program in the Department of Horticultural Science. Her research explores gene drive as a novel method of management for invasive tansy populations. She is working to identify potential risks and benefits of gene drive deployment in plants, develop transformation protocols for common tansy, and identify targets in genes essential to female fertility in common tansy.
Lauren Docherty
Position: Student Presentation Organizer
Advisors: Dr. Aaron Lorenz and Dr. Senyu Chen
Research Focus: Soybean cyst nematode diversity
Lauren is a third year Ph.D student in the Applied Plant Sciences program in the Department of Agronomy and Plant Genetics. Lauren’s research focuses on genotypic and phenotypic diversity in soybean cyst nematode populations in Minnesota. She is measuring virulence on soybean varieties with different resistance sources and taking morphological measurements of nematodes. She hopes her research can be used to develop soybean varieties with durable resistance. This is her second year on the organizing committee and she is looking forward to her first in-person symposium.
Emily M. Moore
Position: Committee Member
Advisors: Dr. Stan Hokanson and Dr. Matthew Clark
Research Focus: Genetic resistance to rose black spot disease and identifying other phenotypic traits via a genetic map
Emily is a third year graduate student at UMN. She received her bachelor's degree in horticulture from University of Wisconsin-River Falls. Her passion for plants and learning brought he to the U to continue her academic journey, with a goal of earning a Ph.D and beginning a career in academia teaching future horticulture students. Outside of academia, she enjoys cooking, baking, hiking and scrapbooking.
Sapphire Coronejo
Inés Rebollo
Position: Committee Member
Advisor: Dr. Rex Bernardo
Research Focus: Genomic prediction
Inés is a second-year PhD student in the Applied Plant Sciences program of the University of Minnesota. Her research is about developing a chromosome-specific genomic prediction approach using maize as a model species.
Lovepreet Singh
Position: Committee Member
Advisor: Dr. Aaron Lorenz
Research Focus: Genomic prediction and GxE interactions
Lovepreet is a first year Ph.D. student in the Applied Plant Sciences program in the Department of Agronomy and Plant Genetics. Lovepreet’s research interests, broadly, are quantitative genetics and genomics-assisted breeding. Currently he is part of the SOYGEN (Science Optimized Yield Gains across ENvironments) project. The major goal of this project is to predict cultivar performance in future target environments through genomics-assisted breeding models, phenomics, and environment characterization.
Isabella Fiore
Position: Student Presentation Organizer
Advisors: Dr. Aaron Lorenz and Dr. Robert Stupar
Research Focus: Genetic resistance to iron deficiency chlorosis in soybean
Isabella is a first year PhD student in the Applied Plant Sciences Program in the Department of Agronomy and Plant Genetics. Her research focuses on breeding for increased resistance to iron deficiency chlorosis, a common abiotic stress for soybeans in the upper midwest. Her research also involves identifying candidate genes driving quantitative trait loci conferring resistance to iron deficiency chlorosis.
Chase Krug
Position: Committee member
Advisors: Dr. Kevin Smith
Research Focus: Domestication of Silphium integrifolium
Chase is a second year PhD student in the Applied Plant Sciences program in the Department of Agronomy and Plant Genetics. His research focuses on understanding the genetic architecture of important agronomic traits in Silphium integrifolium and the development of recurrent selection populations of silflower selected for increased seedling vigor.
Navjot Singh
Position: Committee Member
Research: Debalin Sarangi
Navjot's research aims to quantify the level and investigate the genetic and physiological mechanisms of herbicide resistance in recently identified waterhemp accessions from Minnesota. In addition, he also investigates a critical period of weed seed control for long-term waterhemp management in soybean-based cropping systems.