Sustainability Leadership Fellowship Cohort: 2014-2015

Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Soil and Crop Sciences

Research Summary: Climate change and drought in particular decreases crops and wheat production worldwide. This leads to crop loss every year for millions of farmers around the world, which increases poverty, starvation, and endangers global food security. My contribution to solving this problem is to discover drought tolerant wheat varieties and genes and explore the role of roots (the hidden plant part) in drought tolerance. My approach is using innovative breeding and genetics technologies. The outcome of this research entails the discovery of highly productive and drought tolerant wheat varieties and genes, which ultimately leads to higher income for farmers, lower food prices, and increased food security worldwide.