Position Title
Assistant Professor of Genetics
Director, C.M. Rick Tomato Genetics Resource Center
Education:
Ph.D., University of Florida; Plant Breeding and Genomics, 2022
Research Interests and Expertise:
Our lab investigates the genetic and phenotypic diversity of plant genetic resources in order to accelerate the genetic improvement of crop plants. We seek to bridge the gap between evolutionary biology and plant breeding by studying the genetic basis of quantitative trait variation in crop wild relative populations and then leverage this understanding to introgress useful variation into modern cultivar backgrounds. Our model clade for this research is tomato and its wild relatives, and through the C.M. Rick Tomato Genetics Resource Center, we acquire, maintain, distribute, characterize, and utilize a collection of tomato germplasm resources to facilitate tomato research, breeding, and education around the world.
Current Projects:
- Developing genomic resources and computational tools for mining genetic variation in wild and cultivated tomato populations.
- Overcoming reproductive barriers to accelerate the introgression of wild tomato species into cultivated tomato breeding materials.
- Characterizing the genetic architecture of quantitative trait variation in wild tomato populations and prebreeding useful variation into modern processing tomato cultivars.
Outreach and Extension:
The C.M. Rick Tomato Genetics Resource Center (TGRC) is a national and international genebank that preserves tomato varieties, breeding materials, mutant genetic stocks, and, uniquely, an extensive collection of wild tomato species. Seeds are provided to researchers, breeders, and educators around the world to facilitate investigations into a wide range of topics involving tomato. TGRC germplasm is used extensively to discover and integrate economically important traits into cultivated tomato. Numerous traits have been bred from TGRC stocks including tolerances to biotic stresses such as Tomato Brown Rugose Fruit Virus, Fusarium wilt, and root-knot nematode; tolerance to abiotic stresses such as drought and high salt conditions; and fruit architecture traits that enable processing tomatoes to be mechanically harvested. Our stocks continue to be used by plant breeders and researchers and provides the genetic tools needed to tackle emerging threats to tomato production including the parasitic weed branched broomrape, resistance breaking strains of Tomato Spotted Wilt Virus and root-knot nematode, and enhanced abiotic stress resilience.
Keywords:
- Tomato
- Genetics
- Genomics
- Population Genetics
- Evolutionary Genomics
- Plant Genetic Resources
- Computational Biology
- Artificial Intelligence