Darbin Joshi
Darbin Joshi is an Assistant Research Associate with CIMMYT’s Global Maize Program, based in Nepal.
Tag: plant breeding
Thokozile Ndhlela
Thokozile Ndhlela is a maize line development breeder with CIMMYT’s Global Maize Program, based in Zimbabwe. Her work mainly involves breeding for stress tolerant and nutritious maize varieties to boost food and nutrition security, especially in developing countries.
Francisco J. Piñera-Chavez
Francisco Piñera has a multidisciplinary background in biology, crop production and crop physiology. He joined CIMMYT’s Global Wheat Program in 2016.
Piñera’s research focuses on identifying traits and developing genetic resources for increased lodging resistance in wheat. He also coordinates collaborative activities with Mexican partners to develop new germplasm for wheat growing areas in Mexico.
Dagne Wegary Gissa
Dagne Wegary works as maize breeder, mainly focusing on the development and deployment of high yielding, and abiotic and abiotic stress-tolerant maize varieties for resource-poor farmers in eastern and southern Africa. He is coordinating multi-location on-station regional variety trials that are conducted in collaboration with NARS and seed companies in eastern and southern Africa.
Before moving to Zimbabwe in 2019, Wegary worked as CIMMYT’s maize seed systems specialist based in Ethiopia. During this period, he contributed to the release of several maize varieties, production and distribution of early generation seeds of selected varieties, which boosted maize production and productivity in the country. He is also actively involved in technical capacity building of NARS and seed company partners.
L.M. Suresh
L.M. Suresh leads CIMMYT’s maize pathology efforts in sub-Saharan Africa. He regularly contributes to Global Maize Program projects that have strategic significance in maize pathology, disease diagnosis, epidemiology and disease resistance.
Suresh also works on maize lethal necrosis (MLN) phenotyping with public and private partnership at CIMMYT and the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization’s (KALRO) joint research station in Naivasha, Kenya. His team has phenotyped around 200,000 maize germplasm from various partners and 19 MLN resistant/tolerant hybrids have been released in east Africa so far. He has supported the training of more than 5000 researchers, students, extension workers, private seed company executives and farmers in rapid disease diagnosis and his contributions have helped to prevent further MLN spread throughout eastern and southern Africa.
Manje Gowda
Manje Gowda is a maize molecular breeder based in Kenya with CIMMYT’s Global Maize Program. His current research focuses on the identification, validation and deployment of novel genetic variation into elite germplasm, integrating knowledge on plant breeding, quantitative genetics, and molecular breeding to improve maize breeding efficiency.
In close collaboration with CIMMYT maize breeders, he implements forward breeding and genomic selection in CIMMYT’s Eastern and Southern Africa maize breeding programs. He gives maize breeders access to the newest genotyping technologies and is involved in the development of high quality seeds through rigorous application of marker based QA&QC.
Xinyao He
Xinyao He joined CIMMYT in 2011 and since then his main research area has been Fusarium head blight (FHB) and its associated mycotoxins, including phenotypic screening for FHB resistance, breeding for FHB resistance, genetic dissection of resistance mechanisms, and integrated FHB management.
He has also been heavily involved in wheat blast research since 2016, including field disease screening, genetic studies and marker validation, as well as participating in research and breeding activities for other wheat diseases such as Septoria tritici blotch, Septoria nodorum blotch, spot blotch, tan spot and Karnal bunt.
Carolina Saint Pierre
Carolina Saint Pierre is the Partner Network Coordinator for CIMMYT’s Global Wheat Program (GWP).
She has oversight of wheat international nurseries seed preparation and shipments, database representation, and resource allocation for the International Wheat Improvement Network. She is responsible for research agenda, sub-grant agreements, activity progress and reporting, training, and interactions with NARS and other institutions to generate high-quality phenotypic data on particular traits on field-based phenotyping platforms.
She fosters strong interactions with NARS and other institutions to maximize the use of high-quality phenotypic data and actively participates in ensuring and implementing an efficient data workflow and availability of data within CIMMYT and to partners. She represents GWP as Enterprise Breeding System Business Change Manager.
Velu Govindan
Velu Govindan is a senior wheat breeder at the CIMMYT’s Global Wheat Program in Mexico. He has been engaged in wheat improvement research for the past 15 years. During this period, he made significant contributions towards the development and release of more than 20 biofortified wheat varieties in South Asia with enhanced zinc and iron concentration, with tolerance to rusts & other foliar diseases and climate change-induced heat and drought stress.
Govindan is leading the two of the spring wheat breeding pipelines targeted to early maturing wheat environments with wheat yield potential, climate resilience and yield stability across diverse environments by combining traditional breeding and cutting-edge genomic tools. He is leading the CIMMYT breeding efforts towards mainstreaming grain Zn across elite wheat lines through accelerated breeding strategies. He has published more than 80 peer-reviewed journal articles and 15 book chapters. He received young scientist award from India.
Xuecai Zhang
Xuecai Zhang is a Senior Scientist and Maize Molecular Breeder with CIMMYT’s Global Maize Program. In 2011, he joined CIMMYT as an assistant breeder at the lowland tropical maize breeding program in Mexico. In 2015, he started to lead the maize molecular breeding lab in Mexico to implement modern molecular breeding tools and technologies for accelerating the genetic gain of the Latin American maize breeding pipelines. From 2024, he coordinates the maize collaborations between CIMMYT and China.
P.H. Zaidi
P.H. Zaidi joined CIMMYT in 2007, and has since focused on strengthening the abiotic stress-tolerant germplasm base relevant for the Asian region. He has led efforts to develop abiotic maize germplasm tolerant to stresses including heat, drought, water-logging and anaerobic germination. He has also developed and standardized screening phenotyping techniques, protocols and selection criterion for various abiotic stresses, and supported NARS partners in implementing these into their programs.
Zaidi played a key role in strengthening collaborative research activities between CIMMYT and Asian NARS, as well as initiating research collaborations with new partners in the region. He has organized training courses on abiotic stress breeding and precision phenotyping, and has received several awards for his contributions to maize research, including CIMMYT’s Outstanding Scientist Award in 2009.
Aparna Das
Aparna Das is a Technical Program Manager for the Global Maize Program, working with breeding teams to implement new strategies to improve the product delivery pipeline.
Claudio César Ayala Hernández
Claudio Ayala is an experienced Data Management Coordinator with a demonstrated history of working in the research industry. He has a Master’s degree focused on Information Systems and Applied Computing and is skilled in analytics, database management, and the development of tools for effectively capturing, curating, storing and integrating different datasets.
Fernando Henrique Ribeiro Barrozo Toledo
Fernando Henrique Ribeiro Barrozo Toledo is an Associate Scientist, Agricultural Statistics/Biometrics, with CIMMYT’s Genetic Resources Program.
Arun Kumar Joshi
Arun Kumar Joshi is engaged in developing climate-resilient, high-yielding, nutritive wheat varieties for South Asia. In addition, he is engaged in various collaborations on climate-resilient agriculture and seed system. He has facilitated the development and release of more than five dozen wheat varieties in South Asia through a significant contribution to climate resilience, disease resistance, conservation agriculture, and Zinc rich biofortification. His research findings are published in 188 refereed journal articles, 212 extension articles and manuals, 10 books or book chapters, and 136 symposia proceedings, and has a patent.
Joshi, a former Professor of Banaras Hindu University, is a fellow of the three most prestigious science academies in India – the Indian National Science Academy (INSA), the National Academy of Science in India (NASI), and the National Academy of Agriculture Sciences (NAAS). In 2014, he was awarded the Jeanie Borlaug Laube WIT Mentor Award from the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative at Cornell University.