Dr. Aladdin Hamwieh is a distinguished Chickpea Breeder and Biotechnologist at the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), based in Cairo, Egypt. With a rich background in plant protection, genetics, and breeding, Dr. Hamwieh has made significant contributions to agricultural research and development. Born in Aleppo, Syria, Dr. Hamwieh began his education at Zanobia Elementary School and continued through Hajjar Middle and Secondary Schools. He earned his Bachelor’s Degree in Agricultural Sciences, specializing in Plant Protection, from Aleppo University in 1993. His advanced studies include a Diploma of Higher Studies in Plant Protection, an M.Sc. in Plant Protection with honors, and a PhD in Genetics and Plant Breeding from Kiel University, Germany. Dr. Hamwieh’s research expertise spans a broad spectrum of plant sciences. He has worked extensively on lentil and faba bean core collections at ICARDA, developed marker-assisted selection techniques, and contributed to the development of genetic maps and molecular markers. His notable research includes the development of SSR and AFLP markers for lentil and QTL analysis for salt tolerance in soybean. In addition to his research, Dr. Hamwieh has held various academic and professional positions, including a visiting researcher role at the Japan International Research Center for Agricultural Sciences (JIRCAS) and a lecturer at Aleppo University. His roles at ICARDA have evolved from legume biotechnologist to scientist associate, chickpea breeder, and currently, acting Regional Coordinator for the Nile Valley and Sub-Saharan Africa Regional Program. Dr. Hamwieh is married to Bana Zaitouni, an architect, and they have three sons: Walid (b. 2005), Majddin (b. 2007), and Karam (b. 2013). His extensive experience and dedication continue to advance agricultural research and development in the region.

Dr. Manzoor Hussain Dar is a highly experienced agricultural development professional with over 18 years of global research experience in seed and delivery systems, agricultural extension, and the scaling of agricultural innovations. Currently serving as the Principal Scientist & Global Head in Seed Systems at the International Crop Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Hyderabad, India, he is leading research cluster on seed systems globally and has been instrumental in developing projects aimed at enhancing the resilience and productivity of agricultural practices. Dr. Dar has earned significant recognition for his work at CGIAR, where he developed global strategies on Seed & Delivery Systems for IRRI and spearheaded varietal adoption/replacement strategies for climate-resilient rice in South Asia. Dr. Dar is known for his leadership in coordinating global programs, establishing strategic partnerships, and engaging in policy advocacy. His work has led to the dissemination of climate-resilient crops to millions of farmers, significantly impacting food security and sustainable agricultural practices in the region.

Kerrie Forrest leads the GrainDataGem™ team at Agriculture Victoria, applying high-throughput genotyping with cutting-edge technologies to support the pre-breeding research and breeding sectors in pulses, cereals and oilseeds. Kerrie has worked with industry for more than a decade, focusing on applying genetic and genomic methods for trait dissection in grains, developing industry-relevant genotyping assays, and developing bespoke bioinformatics solutions to characterise germplasm and identify trait-linked markers.

Jodine has worked with the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries and the National Mungbean Improvement Program (NMIP) for the past 4 years. Her career in quantitative genetics has spanned 25 years in both animal and plant breeding for both the private and public sectors.

I am originally from Spain, where I spent my formative years of my career specialising in genetic modification in grapevine and tedera, in vitro tissue culture, and molecular techniques. After the completion of my PhD, I accepted a post-doctoral research position with a research group at UWA. Here, I studied the effect of photoperiod and temperature on plant growth and developed accelerated single-seed descent protocols in legumes, with a primary focus on chickpea. Currently, I am a research fellow at UWA, focused on the improvement in genetic transformation efficiency in legumes using various light spectra. The opportunity to work across different research groups has developed my ability to innovate in the area of agricultural sciences (pre-breeding techniques), through the uptake of new technologies (genetic transformation and gene editing) to solve agricultural problems.

Md Mamunur Rashid, a dedicated graduate of Agricultural Sciences, is currently pursuing his Doctoral degree in Plant Breeding at Justus Liebig University Giessen (JLU), Germany. With a rich academic background, including an Erasmus Mundus joint Master’s program in Plant Breeding from Swedish University of Agricultural Science (SLU) and University of Helsinki (UH), along with practical experience at Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research (MPIPZ), Cologne, he brings a wealth of knowledge in molecular biology and plant breeding. His career journey spans from serving as a Senior Vegetable Breeder at BRAC Agricultural Research and Development Centre, Bangladesh, to his current pursuit of dynamic solutions in climate-smart crop varieties. Committed to providing high-quality seeds and advancing agricultural sustainability, he aims to contribute significantly to global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Francesca Sparvoli is Research Director at IBBA-CNR where she leads the BEAN Group lab. Her main interests are related to the improvement of the nutritional quality of legumes and cereals seeds applying biochemical, molecular and genetic approaches for the modification of bioactive components (nutritional and anti-nutritional). She has a longstanding knowledge of the main protein factors in bean seeds: characterization, gene organization and molecular evolution, influence on the nutritional characteristics of the seed and in the resistance to phytophagous insects. Her studies are aimed at developing new genetic materials for applications in human and animal nutrition. She is also interesed in the addressing the regulatory mechanisms involved in the synthesis and deposition of phytic acid in seeds and role of phosphate inositol metabolism in the plant response to abiotic stresses. More recently, with her group she started to develop a platform for common bean functional genomics contributing with the development of a TILLING population and improving current protocols and approaches for common bean transformation and gene genome editing.

Kübra Arslan, a driven PhD candidate at Justus- Liebig University Giessen, specializes in Agrobioinformatics. With a solid foundation in Molecular Biology and Genetics from her bachelor's and master's degrees, she delved into cross-kingdom RNA interference during her master's, showcasing her expertise in interdisciplinary research. As a versatile freelancer, Kübra contributed to metagenomics projects, demonstrating her adaptability and commitment to cutting-edge fields. Competent in Python, R, and Bash, she continues to refine her programming skills while tackling the complexities of bioinformatics. Currently immersed in the challenging Fababean Pangenome Project, also Kübra collaborates within the Fababean Consortium. She enjoys exploring the complicated field of genomics, where every new finding brings fresh insights and the chance to improve agriculture.

Hyeonah Shim received her PhD degree in 2024 from Seoul National University in South Korea and is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research in Germany. Her work focuses on the faba bean pangenome, constructing chromosome level assemblies of multiple faba bean genotypes. She is interested in evaluating the pangenome of faba bean to explore structural diversity in this species.

Oumaima Chetto is a junior scientist responsible for faba bean breeding program in Morocco. She investigates biotic and abiotic tolerances in faba beans, employing methods such as mutagenesis for breeding. Integrating germplasm from gene banks further enriches the breeding efforts. Her research aims to develop resilient germplasms and improve faba bean cultivation. Furthermore, Oumaima Chetto is coordinating and actively engaging in collaborative projects within this domain

My names is Hendrik Muck, I am a Master's student at Rostock university in Germany, studying microbiology and biochemistry. Currently, I am a visiting scientist within CSIRO Agriculture and Food and Edith Cowan University, where I am leading a lupin proteomics project, which focuses on the exploration of proteome diversity of mature lupin seeds from different species. This project aims to identify lupin varieties with optimal protein composition for food purposes.

Grain legume and oil crops breeder

Bernadette is a research fellow within the ascochyta blight project at the CCDM where her research focuses on understanding the mechanism of interaction between the fungal pathogen, Ascochyta lentis and its lentil host. Since joining CCDM in 2014, she has been exploring different molecular strategies and working towards finding genetic solutions to develop innovative resources to combat fungal diseases.

Dr Linh Hoang is an Advance Queensland Industry Research Fellow (Mid - career) in the School of Agriculture & Food Sustainability, the University of Queensland. She was the holder of Australian Development Scholarship (AusAID) and Endeavour Postgraduate Award for her Master and PhD studies. Linh was awarded Best Paper Award for Early Career Scientist in 2015 by the Australian Society of Plant Scientists for her research paper published in Functional Plant Biology Journal. She has been researching abiotic/biotic stress tolerance, nutritional enrichment, value-adding to Agricultural waste, and enhanced carbon capture/climate change resilience on several crops including rice, pigeonpea, chickpea, mungbean and grasspea. Her research focuses on using advanced biotechnology including genome editing for generation of climate-smart crops. Linh has received an Advance Queensland Research Fellowship (Early - career) for her research on enhanced insect resistance in Pigeonpea.

Michał Książkiewicz is the Head of the Department of Gene Structure and Function at the Institute of Plant Genetics Polish Academy of Sciences. PhD degree obtained in 2010, whereas habilitation in 2019. Research are includes, among others, structural and functional analysis of genes participating in flowering induction in response to photoperiod and vernalization, differential gene expression profiling in plant-pathogen interaction, analysis of genetic variation associated with agronomic traits including linkage mapping, quantitative trait loci mapping, and genome-wide association studies. Studied plants are mostly Old World lupin crop species (narrow-leafed, white and yellow lupins, including both wild and domesticated accessions) and soybean. Michał Książkiewicz is a principal investigator in Polish research projects granted by the National Science Centre (OPUS 21, OPUS 23) and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (Biological Progress in Plant Production) and a lupin crop leader in a Horizon Europe funded project BELIS.

Alexandria Mattinson is a PhD student at the University of Queensland (UQ) in the Integrative Legume Research Group (ILRG) under the guidance of A/Prof. Brett Ferguson, Dr April Hastwell, and Prof. Elizabeth Aitken. Alex's research focuses on the CLAVATA3/EMBRYO SURROUNDING-related (CLE) peptide family, particularly in relation to pathogen infection responses in plants. Alex has worked mostly with Phaseolus vulgaris (common bean) doing expression studies and has also completed collaborative work on Musa acuminata (cavendish banana). In addition to her research, Alex contributes to the UQ community as a tutor and technician. Alex aims to foster innovations that enhance crop resilience and agricultural sustainability.

Dr Rosy Raman is a Sr Research Scientist with NSWDPI and is based at Wagga Wagga, Australia. Her research interests include the understanding of the genetic and genomic bases of biotic and abiotic stress tolerance in crops. Currently, she is exploring new approaches toward developing acid soil tolerant and Ascochyta blight-resistant chickpeas.

I am working as Principal Plant Pathologist in the Pulses Section, Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics since 2014 till date. My area of work pretains to evaluation of chickpea material.germplasm for resistance against Ascochyta blight and Botrytis gray mould in rabi season. Besides chickpea, my research focus is also on Phytophrtora stem blight of pigeon pea during Kharif. I have four registrations in hand besides reaearch publications regarding Ascochyta blight of chickpea. It is my passion to work on Ascochyta blight of chickpea.

Dr. Gaofeng Zhou graduated from University of Tasmania in 2024 and worked on lupin genomics and genetics at Murdoch University.

Dr. NOURA OMRI BENYOUSSEF holds a Ph.D. in plant protection. She'is is an expert in field crop diseases biology and epidemiology, control and breeding for disease resistant. She has many publications in particular on Ascochya fabae, A. rabiei, Erysiphe pisi, Fusarium culmorum and Pyrenophora tritrici ripentis. She also co-registred two faba bean varieties, one chickpea variety, three pea varieties, one triticale variety and two lentil varieties Dr. SOUROUR ABIDI holds a Ph.D. in animal science. She has an expertise in small ruminant nutrition, Feed Evaluation, Rumen Microbiology, Meat Quality, Animal Biotechnology, Livestock Production & Management, Animal Production, Animal Supplementation Studies, Animal Digestion and Conservation Agriculture DR. MOHAMED KHARRAT holds a Ph D. in plant breeding. He is an expert in legume breeding and pathology. He has many publications on legume genetics, interaction of legume with orobanche and fungi. He released also many faba bean, chickpea and lentil varieties Dr. HICHEM BEN SALEM holds a Ph. D. in animal science. He has an expertise in animal nutrition, Small Ruminants Feeding, Meat Quality, Anti Nutritional Factors, Forage, Meat and Animal Production. He has many publications on Livestock Production and Management and Animal feed quality

Lynn Abou Khater is a Consultant-Research Associate at ICARDA, with a Ph.D. in Agricultural Engineering from the University of Córdoba. With over 11 years of experience in the field, Lynn has developed deep expertise in plant breeding, particularly in faba bean breeding, and boasts an impressive publication record. Passionate about sustainability, Lynn aspires to develop crops with higher yields, greater resilience, and reduced environmental impacts to address global food security and climate challenges.

Dr Ahsan Asif works with Chickpea Breeding Australia (CBA) as an Assistant Breeder and based at Tamworth Agricultural Institute. Ahsan was awarded his PhD from the University of Adelaide on identification of salt tolerance genes in bread wheat in 2017. Before joining NSW DPI in 2020, Ahsan worked as Postdoctoral Fellow with Faba Bean Breeding group at the University of Adelaide. Dr Asif main role in CBA is to lead and manage controlled environment breeding activities and is working on developing and optimising new screening protocol for biotic (Ascochyta blight, Phytophthora root rot) and abiotic (Low pH) stress tolerance. Dr Asif is also working closely with Agriculture Victoria and University of Wollongong on implementing new technologies like genomic selection and speed breeding in the breeding program to improve genetic gain of chickpea cultivars. In addition, Ahsan is part of University of New England (UNE) PhD supervisory team and currently supervising students doing a joint PhD project with UNE and DPI for research into chickpea breeding.

I have over 25 years of experience as a breeder, pathologist identifying research problems, planning and executing research activities, analyzing data, and reporting findings. Throughout my research career, I have developed various technologies and scientific knowledge related to cereals, pulses, and horticultural crops. I collaborated with national and international agricultural research systems, including organizations like the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), and The Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU). Currently, I serve as the national coordinator for the highland pulse research program in Ethiopia and as the Co- principal investigator for various projects, successfully achieving our program and project goals

Eric von Wettberg is a professor and director of the Agricultural Experiment Station at the Univeristy of Vermont. His interests include understanding legume domestication and migration. Some of his current research is aimed at supporting participatory breeding of culturally meaningful crops, like mungbean.

Mariem Bouhadida is an associate professor and legume breeder she holds her PhD from University of Saragosse, she is working on the selection of new varieties of faba bean and chickpea with high level of resistance to the main biotic constraints as ascochyta blight and fusarium wilt for chickpea, and resistant to broomrapes mainly for orobanche foetida

Mark Edward Fabreag is currently a PhD candidate at The University of Queensland. His research is focused on using genomics, proteomics and AI to acclerate genetic improvemement of mungbean for protein quality and agronomic traits such as yield. Prior to pursuing PhD degree, he worked in the industry as hybrid rice and hybrid corn breeder for almost 9 years.

Alek Meade graduated with a Bachelor of Science (Honours) in 2023 from the Australian National University. Completing his Honours with Ulrike Mathesius, he investigated the effect flavonoids had on the surrounding microbiome of Medicago truncatula with assistance from Justin Borevitz's lab for learning Oxford Nanopore-based metagenomic analysis.

Thilani is a post-doctoral researcher in the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics at Aarhus University, Denmark. She received her PhD in Plant Breeding, Genetics and Biotechnology from Michigan State University, USA where she developed genomic and gene editing resources for Solanum tuberosum. Her background in molecular biology, plant breeding and genomics allows her to connect the outcomes of large data analysis to practical trait improvements. Her current research is primarily focused on developing methods of plant transformation and gene editing for legume species with a focus on Vicia faba.