Last Year’s Speakers
Thank you to our 2024 invited speakers from across California for sharing their exciting research! Check back soon for the 2025 speaker list.
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Jennifer Barry
Corteva Agriscience
Jennifer Barry is a Technical Manager at Corteva Agriscience whose interests focus on the discovery of proteins that provide the next generation of input traits for use in transgenic crops. She currently leads the Insect Control and Herbicide Tolerance Discovery group which leverages biodiversity, protein biochemistry, next-generation sequencing technology and bioinformatics to discover proteins with utility for these traits.
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Brandon Gaut
University of California, Irvine
Brandon Gaut is a plant evolutionary biologist who uses the tools of genomics to describe and quantify the processes that drive the evolution of plant genomes. In addition to research, Gaut has served as an administrator at UCI (as Chair, Interim Dean and Associate Dean), as President of the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution, and currently as the co Editor-in-Chief of the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution.
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Danelle Seymour
University of California, Riverside
Danelle is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Botany and Plant Sciences at UCR. Before joining UCR, Danelle completed her NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship at UC Irvine. She obtained her Ph.D. from the Max Planck Institute of Developmental Biology (University of Tuebingen) in 2016.
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Jarmila Pittermann
University of California, Santa Cruz
Jarmila Pittermann is a Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at UC Santa Cruz where she teaches plant physiology. Her research focuses on plant structure and function in the context of evolution and climate change.
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Todd P. Michael
The Salk Institute
Todd Michael is a Research Professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies where his group focuses on the sequencing and analysis of plant genomes. His group is part of the Harnessing Plant Initiative at the Salk that aims to develop crop plants that sequester more carbon via extensive root systems containing recalcitrant carbon polymers to fight climate change.
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Whitney Brim-DeForest
University of California, Agriculture and Natural Resources
Whitney Brim-DeForest is the County Director for University of California Cooperative Extension Sutter-Yuba, and the UCCE Rice and Wild Rice Advisor for Sutter, Yuba, Placer, and Sacramento counties. She holds a M.S. in International Agricultural Development and a PhD in Horticulture and Agronomy from the University of California, Davis.
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And more
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