Dr Judith Atieno is a Research Scientist in the Molecular Genetics Group at SARDI and Affiliate Lecturer at the University of Adelaide. She has over a decade experience in pre breeding utilising modern genetic tools to improve disease resistance in pulses and cereals. Dr Atieno is skilled in complex statistical data analysis, and genetic analysis e.g., genetic map construction, biparental QTL mapping, and genome-wide association studies. Research outputs have involved exploring genetic variation for salinity tolerance in a chickpea diversity panel using image-based phenotyping (Atieno, et al., 2017), and the development and characterisation of mapping populations to identify flowering independent loci underlying salinity tolerance and vigour in chickpea (Atieno, et al., 2021).

Sanu Arora is a Group Leader at the John Innes Centre. Her programme focusses on understanding the molecular basis of resistance to biotic stresses in plants. She has developed novel gene discovery methods that explore the diversity of natural populations to uncover novel genes and alleles, which can be introduced into modern cultivars to build resilient crops. Currently, Sanu’s work is centered on utilizing Pisum (pea) germplasm to identify and deploy host genetic factors that confer resistance against significant diseases. Sanu is also engaged in the development of rapid diagnostics for estimating soil microbiome composition and understanding the role of plant pathogens in shaping the soil microbiome. By identifying the key factors that drive the interactions between plants, pathogens, and soil microorganisms, she aims to develop more effective strategies for managing plant diseases and maintaining healthy soils.

A PhD student with the West Australian Centre for Crop Disease Management (CCDM), working on Ascochyta blight resistance of lentil. Em has a background in botany and genetics, personal interest in the history and pedigree of Australian lentil varieties, general enthusiasm for plants, begrudging respect for fungi, and far more opinions about lentils than anyone who doesn’t eat them reasonably should.

Prof. Dr. Canan Can carried out her doctoral studies on the resistance of Arabidopsis thaliana against Peronospora parasitica at the University of London. She did her postdoctoral research at Volcani Center (Israel). She has been working at Gaziantep University, Department of Biology since 2000. Prof. Dr. Canan Can has worked on legume pathogens throughout her academic career, mainly on the Cicer - Ascochyta rabiei pathosystem.

Julie is a post-doctoral researcher from the University of Adelaide, with broad experience in the integration of plant physiology with genetics. She works in close collaboration with SARDI researchers across a number of applied projects. For this project, Julie mentored PhD student Amritha Amalraj in completing an analysis of a complex set of RNAseq data generated for chickpea.