Key Project Personnel
Patrick Byrne (Colorado State University), project lead, [email protected]. teaches and conducts research in plant breeding and genetics. His research on wheat genetics has included extensive evaluation of crop landraces and wild accessions. He teaches an online course and face-to-face courses. He will have overall responsibility for coordinating implementation of the project, managing the budget, providing oversight on development of training materials, and contributing directly to content development of selected topics.
Gina Cerimele (Colorado State University), is a graduate student working on the education and research aspects of the project.
Candice Gardner (Retired, USDA-ARS), former research leader at the North Central Regional Plant Introduction Station, is a collaborator with the USDA-ARS and with Iowa State University. Her research centers on characterization, evaluation, and utilization of PGR, particularly with maize, and technology integration. She shared authorship on the Crop Science review article cited above. Dr. Gardner will contribute to development of modules and training materials, especially for seed crops.
Kierra Jewell (Colorado State University), is an Administrative Assistant III with the Soil and Crop Sciences Department at Colorado State University. She designs and updates websites related to projects and works in collaboration with others for printed materials. Other project related duties for the GRIN-U project include: meeting organization, communication and materials posting, and other organizational details.
Gary Kinard (USDA-ARS), is the Research Leader for the National Germplasm Resources Laboratory (NGRL) in Beltsville, MD. NGRL develops and operates the Germplasm Resources Information Network (GRIN) system as an open data and widely recognized source of information about genetic resource and scientific collections, especially those of the U.S. National Plant Germplasm System. Dr. Kinard and NGRL IT staff will make learning content available by developing and hosting the GRIN-U site as part of the GRIN collection of information products. NGRL scientists will also provide expertise on several PGR topic areas including plant explorations and exchanges, crop wild relatives, GRIN Taxonomy, and international germplasm movement/phytosanitary issues.
Assibi Mahama (Iowa State University), teaches online courses in the MS Distance Plant Breeding Program, leads a project for establishing plant breeding core concepts and competencies, and a Graduate Certificate Program in Breeding for Organic Crops. He will continue to participate in developing Instructor Guides for instructors in Africa to use in teaching course materials developed by the Plant Breeding Education for Africa (PBEA) project. Prior to going to the USA for graduate studies, he conducted grain legume breeding research, focused on groundnut, cowpea, and Bambara groundnut. Dr. Mahama will work to develop instructional materials/applied learning activities to facilitate mastery of concepts covered in relevant course materials, including those available through the PBEA website. He serves as major professor for several MS students working on their creative components for graduation.
Geoff Morris (Colorado State University), conducts research to better understand the genomic basis of adaptation in crops and wild relatives. Through this he aims to gain insight on some fundamental mechanisms of crop adaptation and facilitate improvement of crop adaptive traits.
Maria Munoz-Amatriain (Colorado State University), conducts research on the identification of novel sources of variation for use in breeding programs. She has characterized diverse germplasm collections, including barley and cowpea core and mini-core collections. She will assist in the development of online education content for the project.
Deana Namuth-Covert (Dr. D’s Genetics, Education Consulting), has 20 years of experience at land grant universities teaching online, leading the creation of a plant science learning object repository, as well as leading teams that research best practices in online learning. She will provide guidance on course design, and development and assessment of learning objects and online lessons.
Walter Suza (Iowa State University), serves as Director of Plant Breeding Education for Africa. Before assuming this role, he interfaced between ISU plant breeding faculty and instructional technology groups in development of interactive online course materials in plant breeding. He worked previously with World Food Programme in Angola and UNICEF in Zimbabwe. Dr. Suza will develop instructional materials, make the materials available through the PBEA website, and serve as mentor for the ISU graduate student.
Gayle Volk (USDA-ARS), focuses primarily on improving the conservation and preservation of clonally propagated crops. She co-organized the NIFA sponsored workshop on genebank management training, and co-authored (with Dr. Byrne and others) a Crop Science review article on PGR and the Plant Genetic Resources Training Survey. She has also developed an eBook chapters that utilize videos, images, and text to provide training information. She will be responsible for coordinating USDA-NPGS efforts to develop learning objects relating to plant genetic resources conservation and use.
Jill Zarestky (Colorado State University), conducts research focused on STEM education and education for international development. Zarestky’s expertise will bridge the gaps among the various facets of the project by making connections between educational theory and practical implementation, and types of learners, including graduate and undergraduate students, and practitioner and professional audiences. She will be responsible for conducting the project evaluation.
Katheryn Chen holds a joint position at Colorado State University/USDA-ARS-NLGRP where she utilizes her background in plant genetic resource preservation and skills in visual communication to promote accessible learning content.
Advisory Council
Stephen Amoah, CSIR Crop Research Institute, Ghana
Dave Bubeck, Corteva Agriscience
Clarice Coyne, USDA-ARS
Luigi Guarino, Global Crop Diversity Trust
Roger Levy, Consultant, Seed Technology and Plant Breeding
Thomas Lubberstedt, Iowa State University
Tara Moreau, University of British Columbia Botanical Garden
Wayne Smith, Texas A & M University
Petr Smýkal, Palacky University, Czech Republic