Andreas Börner
Group Leader Resource Genetics and Reproduction
Genebank, IPK Gatersleben
"Andreas Börner joined the Genebank of the IPK as the head of research group Resources Genetics and Reproduction in 1997. Since 2005 he has served as the head of program Management and Evaluation, which is responsible for the long term maintenance of the IPK Genebank collection of cultivated plants and their wild relatives. The Genebank is a major player in the global ex situ plant conservation effort, housing a wide spectrum of accessions representing most of the temperate crop species. In addition to his responsibility for the optimization of the management of the collection, he runs an active research program focused on the investigation of seed longevity, the study of the genetic integrity and genetic diversity as well as a comprehensive phenotypic (phenomic) and genetic description of materials related to the major temperate cereal crops."
Mark Cooper
Research Director & DuPont Fellow
Pioneer Hi-Bred International Inc
"Mark Cooper has been involved in plant breeding research and application for 28 years. During this time he has worked in both the public and private sectors. His research has focused predominantly on cereals; maize, wheat, sorghum and rice. At DuPont-Pioneer he is responsible for the Maize Stress Product Development group that undertakes product development research utilizing transgenic and native sources of genetic diversity to improve maize performance for stress prone environments, with emphasis on water and nitrogen limitations. Mark currently runs a 108 maturity maize breeding program focused on developing drought tolerant products for the Western region of the US corn-belt. He undertakes research focused on understanding the genetic architecture of drought tolerance in maize and application of precision phenotyping and molecular technologies in the development of hybrids with improved yield, stress tolerance and agronomics."
Elisabeth Esch
Vegetable Breeder, Head of Research & Development
Hild Samen GmbH
"Elisabeth Esch is Head of Research and Development and also works as a vegetable breeder at HILD, which is part of Bayer CropScience. Since 2007, she is responsible for the plant breeding activities and related research of HILD, including the breeding of new varieties and maintaining released varieties in about 25 vegetable species. Main breeding programs are in radish, parsley, chives, basil, dill and bunching onion. Before joining HILD, she spent several years in plant breeding research and education with her main focus in quantitative and population genetics."
Tanja Gerjets
Project manager proWeizen
Gesellschaft für Erwerb und Verwertung von Schutzrechten - GVS mbH
"Tanja Gerjets is a plant physiologist, who worked for more than 6 years on wheat research projects in the United Kingdom and France focusing on crop physiology and genetics. In 2012, Tanja took on the position as the project manager of the newly founded alliance for wheat breeding and research in Germany, proWeizen. This alliance was founded in November 2012 by the German wheat breeders to promote wheat breeding and research in Germany. The new alliance is a public-private partnership to foster wheat breeding and research in Germany and internationally as well as a platform for communication and coordination. The proWeizen platform is equally open to scientists and companies working in wheat breeding and research.proWeizen liaises between wheat breeding and wheat research on national and international level, participates in national and international efforts of wheat research and breeding and helps with mobilizing of funding opportunities."
Susanne Groh
Senior Research Scientist
Pioneer Hi-Bred International Inc
"Susanne Groh joined DuPont Pioneer in 1999 as a maize breeder managing a commercial maize breeding program for Northern Europe located the at the research and technology center in Eschbach, Germany. Her program is a leading contributor to commercial Pioneer products throughout Western, Central and Eastern Europe. In addition, she has responsibilities for integrating molecular breeding strategies into the European maize breeding programs and is a member of Pioneer’s global Breeding Innovation Team. Prior to joining DuPont Pioneer, Susanne worked on research projects focused on molecular breeding for insect resistance in maize and the nutritional composition of oats."
Hans-Peter Piepho
Head of Bioinformatics Group
University of Hohenheim
"Hans-Peter Piepho is a Professor of Bioinformatics at the University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart, Germany. He has been working as an applied statistician in agricultural research for almost 20 years. His main interests are related to statistical procedures as needed in plant genetics, plant breeding and cultivar testing. He has worked for many years on modelling of genotype-environment interaction in series of experiments using mixed model procedures. Recent interests include marker-assisted breeding (genomic selection), spatial methods for field trials and experimental design for various applications including cDNA microarrays and series of experiments."
