Bhoja Raj Basnet joined CIMMYT as a postdoctoral fellow working in the bread wheat improvement program in 2012. Photo: A. Cortes/CIMMYT
Breaking Ground is a regular series featuring staff at CIMMYT
MEXICO CITY (CIMMYT) – Scientist Bhoja Raj Basnet knows first hand what it is like to be a smallholder farmer.
Basnet’s earliest memories were formed on a one-acre subsistence farm in Jhapa, in southeastern Nepal, a fertile area in a country where the livelihoods of nearly 65 percent of people depend on agriculture.
The tiny farm provided the foundation for a journey that led ultimately to a doctoral degree in the United States and a career as a wheat breeder in Mexico at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
Wheat plays a major role in Nepal’s agricultural landscape. It is the country’s third largest crop, cultivated on about 750,000 hectares of arable land each year with an average yield of 2.5 tons per hectare. Above wheat, farmers favor only rice and maize.
“I grew up playing with the plants and soil on my family’s farm and before I entered high school I knew I wanted to pursue a career in agricultural science.” Basnet explained. “As I got older I started to realize the importance of agriculture and how agriculture can really shape a child’s health and future. This is what really pushed me to pursue my career.”
Basnet went on to earn his master and doctoral degrees in plant breeding. After graduation in 2012 from Texas A&M University, Basnet joined CIMMYT as a postdoctoral fellow working in the bread wheat improvement program.
In 2014, Basnet began leading a project conducting research into hybrid wheat in collaboration with Syngenta, which involves researching and developing tools and technology for developing commercially viable hybrid CIMMYT wheat varieties.
Hybrid wheat is created when a breeder intentionally crosses two genetically distinct and stable wheat lines to produce an offspring that combines the best traits of the parents. The process of developing a hybrid can take years, as traits are carefully chosen to achieve desired characteristics, such as increased grain yield or stress tolerance.
The principle behind hybrid varieties is exploitation of heterosis, the superiority of the hybrid offspring over its parent varieties. This is a biological phenomenon observed in almost all living organisms. However, the magnitude of “heterosis” varies significantly based on several biological and environmental factors.
“Hybrid wheat has always fascinated me,” Basnet said, adding, “I really want to see the end results and to see this work succeed.”
Hybrid wheat varieties have proven to be tricky. In fact, CIMMYT’s first attempt to develop hybrid wheat occurred in the 1960s and despite stops and starts over the years, has been ongoing since 2010.
Increasing investment and long-term funding commitments are a key prerequisite to achieving success in crop improvement, especially in breeding, Basnet said. Unlike traditional wheat variety development, successful research into hybrid wheat varieties depends largely on the willingness and active engagement of private sectors into research and seed businesses.
Basnet is working to develop a hybrid wheat foundation at CIMMYT by using new technology and existing research on hybrids. This hybrid wheat foundation will create genetic diversity within wheat to increase genetic gains and develop tools that can produce large amounts of hybrid seed.
“Currently less than one percent of wheat crops globally are hybrid wheat,” Basnet explained. “We need to continue with this research, as hybrid crops could lead to 15 to 20 percent greater yield potential and in particular higher stability, a very important trait with climate change.”
Breaking Ground is a regular series featuring staff at CIMMYT
EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) – Carolina Sansaloni’s passion for genetics began when she was at Universidad de Misiones in Posadas, Misiones, Argentina, an interest that grew as she moved on to receive her master’s and doctoral degrees in molecular biology at Universidad de Brasilia in Brazil.
While completing her doctorate degree, Sansaloni travelled to Canberra, Australia to research the genomic structure of the eucalyptus tree at Diversity Arrays Technology (DArT), learning the ins and outs of sequencing technology.
In 2012, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) wanted to introduce the DArT genotyping technologies to Mexico to serve the needs of the Mexican maize and wheat research communities, and once Sansaloni finished her doctoral degree, she was an obvious choice to lead this initiative.
Working under the MasAgro Biodiversidad project in partnership with DArT, INIFAP and CIMMYT, Sansaloni helped to build the Genetic Analysis Service for Agriculture (SAGA in Spanish) from the ground up.
The service, managed by the CIMMYT-based Seeds of Discovery (SeeD) initiative, brings cutting edge genotyping capacity and genetic analysis capability to Mexico. The facility provides unique insights into the genetic variation of wheat and maize at a “sequence level.” Use of the vast quantities of data generated help understand genetic control of characteristics evaluated at a plant or crop level for example, height variations among wheat varieties.
SAGA’s services are available for all CIMMYT scientists, universities, national agriculture research programs and private companies. Worldwide, few other platforms produce this kind of data and most are inaccessible to scientists working at publicly funded institutions because their economic or logistics difficulties.
“When it comes to genotyping technology, it doesn’t matter what type of organism you are working with. It could be wheat, eucalyptus or chicken – the machine will work the same way,” explained Sansaloni.
Sansaloni has also been focusing her time on the wheat Global Diversity Analysis, which characterizes and analyzes seeds in genebanks at both CIMMYT and the International Center for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas (ICARDA). Her team has characterized approximately 100,000 wheat accessions including 40 percent of the CIMMYT genebank and almost 100 percent of the ICARDA genebank wheat collection. This is an incredible and unique resource for wheat scientists providing a genetic framework to facilitate selection of the most relevant accessions for breeding.
“Currently only five to eight percent of materials in the genebank are being used in the breeding programs,” Sansaloni said. “The Global Diversity Analysis could have huge impacts on the future of wheat yields. It is like discovering the pieces of a puzzle, and then beginning to understand how these pieces can fit together to build excellent varieties of wheat.”
Sansaloni’s goal is to combine information from CIMMYT and ICARDA, making the information accessible to the entire wheat community and eventually enhancing breeding programs across the globe.
“Working at CIMMYT has been an invaluable experience,” Sansaloni said. “I’ve had the opportunity to work and collaborate with so many different people, and it’s brought me from the laboratory into the wheat fields, which really brings me closer to my work.”
SeeD is a joint initiative of CIMMYT and the Mexican Ministry of Agriculture (SAGARPA) through the MasAgroproject. SeeD receives additional funding from the CGIAR Research Programs on Maize (MAIZE CRP) and Wheat (WHEAT CRP), and from the UK’s Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC).
Breaking Ground is a regular series featuring staff at CIMMYT
Deepmala Sehgal, wheat geneticist and molecular breeder at CIMMYT. Photo: M. Listman/CIMMYT
EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) — Molecular analysis research by Deepmala Sehgal, a wheat geneticist and molecular breeder who joined the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) as an associate scientist in 2013, has led to the discovery of novel genes for yield, disease resistance and climate resilience in previously little-used wheat genetic resources.
But getting to the point of applying cutting-edge DNA marker technology to support CIMMYT wheat breeding has involved a few dramatic moves for the New Delhi native, who studied botany throughout middle school and university. “I loved science and chose plant science, because I enjoyed the field trips and didn’t like dissecting animals,” Sehgal said, explaining her choice of profession.
It wasn’t until she was studying for her Ph.D. at Delhi University in 2008 that she first used molecular markers, which are DNA segments near genes for traits of interest, like drought tolerance, and which can help breeders to develop improved crop varieties that feature those traits.
“For my thesis, I used molecular markers in a very basic way to analyze the diversity of safflower species that the U.S. Department of Agriculture had in its gene bank but didn’t know how to classify. I found a place for some and, for several, had to establish completely new subspecies,” Sehgal said.
Later, as a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Aberystwyth in Britain, Sehgal used an approach known as fine mapping of quantitative trait loci (QTL), for drought tolerance in pearl millet. “The aim of fine mapping is to get shorter QTL markers that are nearer to the actual gene involved,” she explained, adding that this makes it easier to use the markers for breeding.
As it turned out, Sehgal’s growing proficiency in molecular marker research for crops made her suited to work as a wheat geneticist at CIMMYT.
“By 2013, CIMMYT had generated a huge volume of new data through genotyping-by-sequencing research, but those data needed to be analyzed using an approach called “association mapping,” to identify markers that breeders could use to select for specific traits. My experience handling such data and working with drought stress gave me an in with CIMMYT.”
Based at CIMMYT’s Mexico headquarters, Sehgal currently devotes 70 percent of her time to work for the CIMMYT global wheat program and the remainder for Seeds of Discovery, a CIMMYT-led project supported by Mexico’s Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Food (SAGARPA), which aims to unlock new wheat genetic diversity able to address climate change challenges.
Over the last two years, she has served as lead author for two published studies and co-author for four others. One used genotyping-by-sequencing loci and gene-based markers to examine the diversity of more than 1,400 spring bread wheat seed collections from key wheat environments. Another applied genome-wide association analysis on a selection of landrace collections from Turkey.
“In the first, we discovered not only thousands of new DNA marker variations in landraces adapted to drought and heat, but a new allele for the vernalization gene, which influences the timing of wheat flowering, and new alleles for genes controlling grain quality, all in landraces from near wheat’s center of origin in Asia and the Middle East.”
Sehgal acknowledges the as-yet limited impact of molecular markers in wheat breeding. “Individual markers generally have small effects on genetically complex traits like yield or drought tolerance; moreover, many studies fail to account for “epistasis,” the mutual influence genes have on one another, within a genome.”
To address this, she and colleagues have carried out the first study to identify genomic regions with stable expression for grain yield and yield stability, as well as accounting for their individual epistatic interactions, in a large sample of elite wheat lines under multiple environments via genome wide association mapping. A paper on this work has been accepted for publication in Nature Scientific Reports.
Sehgal has found her experience at CIMMYT enriching. “I feel free here to pursue the work I truly enjoy and that can make a difference, helping our center’s wheat breeders to create improved varieties with which farmers can feed a larger, more prosperous global population in the face of climate change and new, deadly crop diseases.”
Breaking Ground is a regular series featuring staff at CIMMYT
Jiafa Chen, a statistical and molecular geneticist at CIMMYT. Photo: CIMMYT
EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) – Maize has always been an integral part of Jiafa Chen’s life.
Chen, a statistical and molecular geneticist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), has helped identify new genetic resources that have the potential to be used to breed new maize varieties that withstand a variety of environmental and biological stresses. He has also played a significant role in the development of a recent partnership between CIMMYT and Henan Agricultural University (HAU) in China.
Born in Henan – a province in the fertile Yellow River Valley known for its maize and wheat production – Chen’s family grew maize, which was a major source of income and led to his interest in breeding the crop as a means to help small farmers in China. He went on to study agriculture at HAU, where he focused on maize at a molecular level throughout undergraduate and graduate school, then came to CIMMYT as a postdoctoral researcher in 2013.
“Coming to CIMMYT was natural for me,” Chen said. “CIMMYT’s genebank – which holds over 28,000 maize accessions – offered a wide array of genetic resources that could help to breed varieties resistant to disease and abiotic stress which are large challenges in my country.”
Over Chen’s four years at CIMMYT headquarters near Mexico City, he has helped characterize CIMMYT’s entire maize genebank using DArTseq, a genetic fingerprinting method that can be used to help identify new genes related to traits like tolerance to heat under climate change, or resistance to disease. This research is being used to develop maize germplasm with new genetic variation for drought tolerance and resistance to tar spot complex disease.
“Conserving and utilizing biodiversity is crucial to ensure food security for future generations,” Chen said. “For example, all modern maize varieties currently grown have narrow genetic diversity compared to CIMMYT’s genebank, which holds some genetic diversity valuable to breed new varieties that suit future environments under climate change. CIMMYT and other genebanks, which contain numerous crop varieties, are our only resource that can offer the native diversity we need to achieve food security in the future.”
Chen moved back to China this month to begin research at HAU as an assistant professor, where he will continue to focus on discovering new genes associated with resistance to different stresses. Chen was the first student from HAU to come to CIMMYT, and has served as a bridge between the institutions that officially launched a new joint Maize and Wheat Research Center during a signing ceremony last week.
The new center will focus on research and training, and will host four international senior scientists with expertise in genomics, informatics, physiology and crop management. It will be fully integrated into CIMMYT’s global activities and CIMMYT’s current collaboration in China with the Chinese Agricultural Academy of Sciences.
“I think through the new center, CIMMYT will offer HAU the opportunity to enhance agricultural systems in China, and will have a stronger impact at the farm level than ever before,” Chen said. “I also think HAU will have more of an opportunity to be involved with more global agricultural research initiatives, and become a world-class university.”
This story appeared originally on the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative website. Linda McCandless is associate director for communications, International Programs, College of Agricultural and Life Sciences at Cornell University. She also oversees communications for the Delivering Genetic Gain in Wheat project.
“A ship is safe in the harbor, but that’s not what ships are for” is Maricelis Acevedo’s favorite mantra. The newly appointed associate director for science for Cornell University’s Delivering Genetic Gain in Wheat (DGGW) project left her island home of Puerto Rico in 2003 to pursue a career as a pathologist and has been traveling the world ever since.
This past month, Acevedo visited wheat screening nurseries in Kenya and Ethiopia and wheat research centers in India with Ronnie Coffman, director of the DGGW. She feels grateful for the opportunity to lead the scientific component of a project whose goals are to help mitigate the threat of food insecurity in vulnerable regions of the world, especially Ethiopia.
“The job comes with new opportunities and great responsibilities to achieve food security for a growing population,” said Acevedo. “Given the challenges of a changing climate, scarce agricultural resources, and the misinformation about what technology can provide to agriculture in the developing and developed world, I feel privileged to be a voice for farmers, researchers and sponsors in the fight against wheat pathogens.”
Acevedo believes the world can do better in bringing science to smallholder farmers’ fields. Her new journey on behalf of the DGGW began on March 16 when she helped launch the DGGW project in the wheat fields of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), in Ciudad Obregón in Mexico’s state of Sonora. Over the next year she will be visiting farmers and partner agricultural research facilities, including CIMMYT, around the globe.
“For the past eight years, Maricelis has collaborated with the Cornell team on various aspects of the Durable Rust Resistance in Wheat project,” said Coffman, vice-chair of the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative (BGRI). “Maricelis is an accomplished rust pathologist who also comes from an agricultural background. That is enormously helpful in a project whose success is so closely linked to farmer adoption of new varieties. We welcome her with great enthusiasm.”
The new DGGW grant will use modern tools of comparative genomics and big data to develop and deploy varieties of wheat that incorporate climate resilience and heat tolerance as well as improved disease resistance for smallholder farmers.
SMALL FARM ROOTS
Growing up on a small farm in Puerto Rico, in a family that grew plantains, bananas, edible beans, taro, sweet potato, maize and pigeon peas, Acevedo received an early introduction to the agricultural science behind farming. It was her father, now a retired agronomist from the University of Puerto Rico, who first introduced her to the concept of “pathogens.” She remembers watching him spray their fields to protect their crops from disease dressed in a protective suit and face mask. Mimicking his actions as a 4-year-old, she took a small plastic cup and sucked it tight onto her face breaking the capillaries all around her mouth and nose while “spraying” her Mom’s flowers with a watering can — “my first job as a pathologist,” she laughs.
More seriously, she also remembers her father testing farming practices that were going to be introduced to farmers’ fields in following seasons — “participatory breeding and research at its best.” And his first lessons on phenotypic selection of plantains and beans and his eagerness to try the new varieties coming out of the University of Puerto Rico Agricultural Experiment Research Station breeding and crop improvement programs.
Having experienced the devastation of seasonal crops due to drought, hurricanes, diseases and insects, Acevedo said she also knows the heartaches associated with farming. “I will never forget the emotional stress on my dad’s face in those moments.”
UNDERSTANDING HOST-PATHOGEN INTERACTION
During her undergraduate years at the University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez, Acevedo studied biology, genetics, botany and biotechnology, courses that helped her decide to pursue a master’s degree in agronomy where she focused on crop improvement and the genetics of edible beans.
Working on host resistance helped her decide to understand the pathogen side of the disease equation so she joined James R. Steadman’s laboratory in the department of plant pathology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln to pursue her Ph.D. in 2003. Acevedo’s research project, partially funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, focused on virulence diversity of edible bean rust pathogens in Honduras and the identification of resistance in wild beans and bean landraces. “That is how my passion for international agriculture and rust research began,” said Acevedo.
Acevedo was in the first class of BGRI Women in Triticum (WIT) Early Career Award Winners in 2010. “The WIT award help me identify and meet an amazing pool of female scientists who have mentored and encouraged me. We have developed collaborations that go beyond our professional lives.”
Acevedo takes seriously her role as mentor to other younger WIT winners who look to her as a role model for their research and academic careers.
SOLUTION ORIENTED
Acevedo believes her role with the DGGW is the perfect opportunity for her to facilitate how great work done by wheat scientists makes it to the field.
“I look forward to being part of the solutions necessary to deliver higher genetic gain wheat and promote better variety adoptions in key regions of Sub-Saharan Africa and Central and South Asia,” said Acevedo. “I also look forward to seeing how we can utilize new technologies such as high through-put phenotyping, genomic selection and early warning systems for pathogen epidemics and implementing them in research and farmers’ fields.
“With the BGRI’s help in capacity building, research and education, we are training the next generation of wheat scientists for their countries and for their regions, increasing wheat production, and helping achieve food security,” Acevedo said. “I am very excited about helping developing countries with high potential for wheat improve their production and yield.”
CIMMYT scientist Sarah Hearne talks about gender equality in science. (Photo: Alfonso Cortés Arredondo/ CIMMYT)
EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) – Scientific change requires innovation and the best solutions emerge when a wide range of perspectives have been considered, if you don’t have representation from half of the population the scope for innovation is narrowed, said a leading molecular geneticist on the International Day of Women and Girls in Science.
“Women often look at problems from a different angle from men – not better, just different – and like men we have a different gender perspective – all perspectives are valid and of value,” said Sarah Hearne, who leads the maize component of the Seeds of Discovery project at the International Center for Maize and Wheat Improvement.
Her passion for science began in girlhood, stemming from a curiosity about how things work.
“I loved experimenting and figuring out how and why things happen; I used to dissect my grandma’s fish when they died to try to work out why they were floating in the tank – I was six at the time,” she said. “Thankfully my parents weren’t horrified by this and over the years my requests for microscopes, chemistry sets and supplies of organs to dissect were realized by Santa and the village butcher.”
Not all girls receive such encouragement. A study conducted in 14 countries found the probability for female students graduating with a bachelor’s, master’s or doctoral degree in a science-related field are 19, 8 and 2 percent respectively, while the percentages of male students are 37, 18 and 6, according to the United Nations.
In response, in December, U.N. member states adopted a resolution to establish an annual international day to mark the crucial role women and girls play in science and technological communities celebrated for the first time on Feb. 11 this year. The aim is to further the access of women and girls and their participation in science, technology, engineering and mathematics education, training and research activities.
She kicked off her career in adulthood by earning a Bachelor of Science degree in Applied Plant Science at the University of Manchester and a doctoral degree at the University of Sheffield where she focused on work based across the University of Sheffield, the John Innes Center and Syngenta. Since graduating she has worked at two CGIAR centers in Latin America and East and West Africa.
She currently works with CIMMYT in the Seeds of Discovery project where she develops and applies tools to identify and enable the use of the valuable genetic variation present in genebanks for the benefit of farmers and consumers around the world.
She shared her views on women and girls in science in the following interview.
Q: Why is it important to have an increased number of woman and girls studying as well as working in scientific fields?
Girls rock!
Half the population is female but in science careers we are underrepresented, this imbalance becomes increasingly acute as you move up in career structures towards positions of more decision making.
Gender-balanced companies tend to have higher profitability and rank higher in terms of institutional health. This translates to the non-profit sector – impact instead of profitability is the measure of success. More women are needed in scientific research and development at all levels of organizations. This ideal requires a gender-balanced pool of potential applicants – something that is hard to obtain when women are underrepresented in sciences from school to university.
Q: What inspired you to follow a career in science and agriculture?
I grew up in Yorkshire, a rural area in the UK, my dad was an agricultural engineer and my mum still runs her own shop. Farming was an integral part of our community and our lives.
I loved science at school and was one of the few who studied chemistry and physics. Indeed, I was the only girl who studied the four sciences on offer. I enjoyed studying biology and environmental science the most, and after leaving school I deliberated whether to study genetics or plant science at university, eventually deciding to do a degree in applied plant science.
I spent my third year at university working with Zeneca – now Syngenta. My fellow interns and I were plunged into the deep end of applied research with very limited supervision; I LOVED IT! I got to research design, test, evaluate and develop tools and resources that mattered to the company and to farmers; my boss was very supportive and he encouraged me to try out some of my more “wacky” ideas…I was allowed to fail and learn from failure, developing better methods as a result. After earning my B.Sc. I applied for Ph.Ds., all the Ph.Ds. I applied for were focused on different aspects of crop improvement – I wanted to work with plant science that had an impact on people’s lives. The Ph.D. I chose was on maize molecular genetics and physiology working on Striga (a parasitic weed endemic to Africa) and drought. My Ph.D. experiences importantly gave me first-hand experience of the hard reality of the precariousness of food and nutritional security across vast swathes of the human population. When completing my Ph.D. I decided I wanted to be able to contribute to food security through research but I didn’t want to do this within a university setting- I thought that was too far from farmers. I came to know CIMMYT through my doctoral research and I have been working in the CGIAR system of agricultural researchers ever since completing my Ph.D.
Q: What challenges do women and girls face with regard to science today?
Perceptions: Women can face direct sexism related to their choice of class/degree/career not being considered gender appropriate, this often has cultural influence so while a girl may be more or less accepted in one culture she is not in another. Role models also pose a challenge. There are few female role models in many areas; those that exist have often sacrificed much personal life to be where they are. This gives a skewed picture to girls in an image-obsessed world where people are expected to be perfect in all aspects of life. Science is still very male dominated, especially agricultural science. Overt and unintentional sexism is rife in many organizations – women can be made to feel like a “token” staff member..
Being assertive and focused is often viewed very negatively when women display this behavior with gender-specific terms being used. I have been called “bossy, bitchy, emotional, aggressive, ice queen, scary, etc.”, my male colleagues exhibiting the same behavior are “driven, focused, tough, go-getters, etc.” I have never heard them being called bossy….
Inequality at home results in inequality in science. Women still tend to bear the brunt of home and childcare activities and this creates real or perceived impacts. Institutions and national governments don’t always help – shared maternity/paternity leave would be a good starting point.
Q: What is your advice to young aspiring female scientists?
Wow, there are lots of wisdom picked up and passed on I could share, here are a few I have found the most useful:
Personal: Check your own prejudice and ensure you treat others in an equal way. I get tired of hearing statements like “men can’t multi-task”… it is as offensive as “women can’t read maps”. If we want equality we have to ensure we model it ourselves.
Work on self-confidence, self-esteem and develop a good, self-depreciating sense of humor. Build a support network to help maintain these things and give you honest feedback. Don’t be afraid to ask questions; ask lots of questions.
Don’t stress about titles, positions or detailed career paths – career paths don’t usually follow a straight or planned path and you discover more fulfilling things on the journey. Give yourself time to explore and discover an area of science you love and are inspired by; believe me it is worth every second invested. Happiness is more important that a title on a business card.
Pick your partners carefully, life is full of surprises and striving for equality shouldn’t stop in the classroom or workplace.
In school/the workplace, do not accept gender loaded statements; “you are bossy” should be quickly but firmly rebuked with “not bossy, simply assertive”. Speak out about gender bias –be it female, male, bi -or trans gender – and enable and support others to speak out. If someone says something that makes you feel uncomfortable, articulate this to them. In addition, I would advise that you should never, ever accept sexual harassment of yourself or others in the workplace. Report it and if needed shout and scream about it. It is a good idea to build a financial/family safety net for yourself so that you have the freedom to leave situations where there is unwillingness of employers to deal with sexual harassment.
Learn to program Python and a bit of Java. Data is getting easier to capture and as a result the volume of data we are processing grows year on year. Having the skills to manipulate and analyze this is increasingly critical – off the shelf solutions no longer work. Being able to program is an increasingly valuable skill and one many girls are not encouraged to explore.
Try to understand the gender climate of the organization you are working for – or want to work for – and seek out allies to navigate and – hopefully – start to influence the climate to a more gender neutral workplace.
Don’t view every decision as having gender bias – sometimes there really isn’t any- you just don’t like the decision.
Apply for jobs even when you don’t meet all of the requirements – if you can do half of the things well and can learn the others then apply- nothing ventured nothing gained (and few candidates, male or female, tick all of the boxes).
Learn how to negotiate and try not to enter a situation in which you are unaware of the facts about what you are arguing for. Women often feel uncomfortable to negotiate salaries – you feel worse when you realize a male colleague doing the same job is being paid more.
Don’t let anyone shout at you, and don’t let anyone talk over you – calmly, quietly, and privately explain how you want to be treated – if the shouting continues walk away from the situation.
Consider family issues whether you have a family or not; do you need to send an urgent request to someone at 5pm on a Friday? -This helps all colleagues – men have families too and we all need work-life balance.
As you all know, Paula Kantor died tragically on May 13, in the aftermath of a Taliban attack on the hotel where she was staying in Kabul, Afghanistan. We are all very sorry for her loss and are gathered here today to pay homage to a caring, committed, energetic and talented colleague.
Paula joined CIMMYT as a senior gender and development specialist in February 2015 to lead an ambitious research project focused on understanding the role of gender in major wheat-growing areas of Afghanistan, Ethiopia and Pakistan.
CIMMYT colleagues plant a tree in memory of Kantor. (Photo: C. Beaver/CIMMYT)
She was not a stranger to Afghanistan, having worked in Kabul from 2008 to 2010 as director and manager of the gender and livelihoods research portfolios at the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, an independent research agency. She had a love for the Afghani people and was committed to improving their lives.
I never met Paula, but having spoken to colleagues who knew her, she had an exceptionally sharp, analytical mind and a deep understanding of how change can empower men and women to give them a better chance to influence their own lives and choose their own path.
By planting this tree, we want to remember Paula for her strong passion in ensuring that her work made a difference and it is now upon us to move forward and make that difference she strived for.
CIMMYT’s director general, Martin Kropff, during the memorial event. (Photo: C. Beaver/CIMMYT)
Rosalind Morris was a pioneer in agricultural science at a time when there were very few women scientists. Her achievements were groundbreaking: in 1947, Morris and Leona O. Schnell became the first women to graduate with doctoral degrees from Cornell University’s department of plant breeding.
That same year, Morris became the first female faculty member hired in the agronomy department at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln (UNL). Later, in 1963, she became the first woman honored as a fellow of the American Society of Agronomy.
“Morris became an outstanding wheat cytogeneticist. She was a mentor to many wheat scientists, and a meticulous teacher,” said Thomas Payne, head of the Wheat Germplasm Bank at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
Born in Wales in 1920, Morris had the unique opportunity to study agricultural sciences at a time when most college-age males were involved in World War Two. She earned her Bachelor of Science in Agriculture from the University of Guelph and was soon accepted into the graduate program in the plant breeding department at Cornell University.
During her career, Morris taught graduate courses in plant genetics and cytogenetics, exploring cell function and structure with a particular emphasis on chromosomes. She also became a junior partner in experiments to test the effects of X-rays and thermal neutrons on crop plants, studies, which are said to have grown out of concern over the effects of atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War Two.
Morris succeeded in developing wheat genetic stocks, or wheat populations generated for genetic studies, that have worldwide importance in explaining wheat genetics. Her work provides a premier resource base for the emerging field of functional genomics, which explores how DNA is translated into complex information in a cell.
Though Morris is now retired, she often feels “homesick” for her work, according to an interview with the Agricultural Institute of Canada, a sign of the passion which truly makes her a super woman.
Any views expressed in this article are those of the author and not of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center.
“JUMPING GENES” EXPLAIN HOW BACTERIA BUILD UP RESISTANCE TO ANTIBIOTIC
At a time when women scientists were few and far between, Barbara McClintock made a name for herself as the most distinguished cytogeneticist in the field of science. From her early studies in genetics in the 1920s, to her 1940s breakthrough in mobile genetic elements, which led to her 1983 Nobel Prize, her legacy is one that still lingers today.
“She was a pioneer in agricultural sciences at a time when women scientists were not promoted or supported,” said Thomas Payne, head of the Wheat Germplasm Bank at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
“Her contribution to cytogenetics, which explored cell function and structure with particular emphasis on chromosomes, was immense.”
Her work was groundbreaking. During the 1940s and 1950s, she discovered transposable elements and used them to demonstrate that genes are responsible for determining physical characteristics. Later, she made an extensive study of the cytogenetics and ethnobotany of South American maize races.
McClintock’s theories on transposition were initially met with skepticism. In 1950, when she first reported that genetic information could transpose from one chromosome to another, mainstream scientists assumed that her discoveries were not universally applicable to all organisms.
It wasn’t until the 1960s, when biologists Francois Jacob and Jacques Monod discovered similar controlling elements in bacteria that the importance of her research was realized. McClintock received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1983, and to this day remains the only woman to receive an unshared Nobel Prize in that category.
Born in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1902, McClintock began her studies at Cornell’s College of Agriculture in 1919, attending the only genetics course open to undergraduate students in 1922. She received her Ph.D in botany in 1927, thus beginning her career as leader in the development of maize cytogenics.
By the time of her death in 1992, it was widely recognized that McClintock’s work had greatly assisted in the understanding of human disease. “Jumping genes” help explain how bacteria are able to build up resistance to an antibiotic, and there is some indication that these genes are involved in the alteration of normal cells to cancerous cells.
As a pioneer in agricultural sciences, McClintock truly was a superwoman.
Any views expressed in this article are those of the author and not of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center
EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) ‑ CIMMYT is sad to announce the tragic death of our friend and respected colleague, gender and development specialist Paula Kantor.
Paula died on May 13, in the aftermath of an attack on the hotel where she was staying in Kabul, Afghanistan.
“We extend our deepest condolences to her family, friends and colleagues,” said Thomas Lumpkin, CIMMYT’s director general.
“Paula’s desire to help people and make lasting change in their lives often led her into challenging settings. Her dedication and bravery was much admired by those who knew her and she leaves a lasting legacy upon which future research on gender and food security should build.”
Paula joined CIMMYT as a senior scientist (gender and development specialist) in February 2015 to lead an ambitious new project aimed at empowering and improving the livelihoods of women, men and youth in important wheat-growing areas of Afghanistan, Ethiopia and Pakistan.
“We’re shocked and left speechless by the tragic loss,” said Olaf Erenstein, director of socio-economics at CIMMYT. “Paula was such a caring, committed, energetic and talented colleague. She inspired everyone she worked with – and it’s so sad that her life and career were prematurely ended. She will be sorely missed – our deepest sympathies to her family, friends and colleagues throughout the world.”
At the time of her death at age 46, Paula had many years of experience in the area of gender and social development. She was an established and respected professional and prolific writer, having published more than a dozen peer-reviewed academic publications, some 10 peer-reviewed monographs and briefs, 15 other publications and 10 conference papers during her lifetime.
Dynamic Career
Before joining CIMMYT, Paula served as a senior gender scientist with CGIAR sister organization WorldFish for three years from 2012.
At WorldFish, working in Bangladesh, Malaysia and Egypt, Paula contributed significantly to the design and development of gender-transformative approaches for the CGIAR Research Programs (CRP) on Aquatic Agricultural Systems (AAS) and Livestock and Fish.
She coached many of her colleagues in a range of pursuits, and among many noteworthy achievements, she mentored an international non-governmental organization in its efforts to deliver gender programming to women fish retailers in Egypt.
“It is such a tragic, shocking waste of a remarkable talent,” said Patrick Dugan, WorldFish deputy director general and CRP AAS Director.
“Her commitment to gender, and wider social equality inspired the people she worked with. She’ll be sorely missed by us all.”
For two years previously, Paula worked at the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) in Washington, D.C., developing intervention research programs in the area of gender and rural livelihoods, including a focus on gender and agricultural value chains.
From 2008 to 2010, Paula was based in Kabul, working as director and manager of the gender and livelihoods research portfolios at the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU), an independent research agency.
An American citizen from North Carolina, after earning a Bachelor of Science in Economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1990, Paula earned a master’s degree in Gender and Development from Britain’s Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex.
“Paula was a key pillar in our gender work and a dear friend to many of us,” said Lone Badstue, CIMMYT gender specialist.
“It was a privilege to work with her. She had a strong passion for ensuring that her work made a difference. It’s hard to imagine how to move forward, but I am convinced that Paula would want us to do that and to make the difference for which she strived.”
Paula is survived by her mother and father, Barbara and Anthony Kantor, her brother Anthony John, her sister Laura Styrlund (Charles), her niece Lindsay and her nephew Christopher.
If you would like to offer your condolences you can send us a message to cimmyt@cgiar.org. CIMMYT will deliver all messages received to Paula’s family. Thank you for your thoughts and support.
Dr. Sanjaya Rajaram, center, joined Nuria Urquía Fernández, left, representative in Mexico of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, and Raúl Urteaga Trani, coordinator of international affairs of Mexico’s Secretariat of Agriculture, Livestock, Rural Development, Fisheries and Food (SAGARPA), for a news conference on 15 July.
Better research and policies are not enough to ensure that wheat productivity rises to meet the expanding demand of the world population in coming decades, according to Dr. Sanjaya Rajaram, 2014 World Food Prize winner and retired CIMMYT distinguished scientist.
“If we want to make a change, research won’t do it alone; we need to work directly with farmers and to train young agronomists, ensuring they have a broad vision to be able to address the problems in farmers’ fields,” said Rajaram, speaking at a news conference in Mexico City on 15 July.
Rajaram shared the conference table with Nuria Urquía Fernández, representative in Mexico of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, and with Raúl Urteaga Trani, coordinator of international affairs of Mexico’s Secretariat of Agriculture, Livestock, Rural Development, Fisheries and Food (SAGARPA). “Dr. Rajaram’s work on the genetic improvement of wheat has helped productivity to increase beyond population and demand growth,” said Urquía, who along with Urteaga introduced Rajaram at the event.
During 33 years as a CIMMYT wheat scientist, Rajaram worked directly with Nobel Peace laureate and World Food Prize founder Dr. Norman Borlaug. As leader of bread wheat breeding and later director of CIMMYT’s Global Wheat Program, Rajaram personally oversaw the development of more than 480 high-yielding, disease-resistant varieties sown on 58 million hectares in developing countries.
Speaking to representatives of leading national and global media outlets, Rajaram thanked CIMMYT for the freedom to conduct his groundbreaking wheat breeding research. He also acknowledged the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), where he worked for several years before his retirement in 2008, for its efforts to breed and spread improved legumes and other crops that foster diverse farming and diets. “Finally, I want to thank Mexico and farmers in agricultural states like Sonora, Estado de México, Jalisco and Guanajuato. As a foreigner, when I first arrived at CIMMYT I had to show that I could do the best for Mexico,” explained Rajaram, who was born and raised in India but is also a naturalized citizen of Mexico, a country he said opened its arms to him and his family.
Outcomes of the conference included positive reports by leading Mexican newspapers and Notimex, the Mexican wire service whose postings are run by many other national media outlets.
During his visit to the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS) in China, Director General Thomas Lumpkin took the opportunity to make a very special announcement – the promotion of Zhonghu He to CIMMYT Distinguished Scientist. He now joins an illustrious group of past and present CIMMYT Distinguished Scientists: Mujeeb Kazi, Sanjaya Rajaram, Surinder K. Vasal, Ravi Singh, Jose Crossa, and Hugo Córdova.
He first joined CIMMYT as a post-doctoral scientist from 1990-92, before coming back to lead the China office when it first opened in 1997. In the subsequent 15 years He used his connections with CAAS to successfully establish a CIMMYT-CAAS wheat improvement program that is now highly recognized in China and worldwide for its significant achievements in varietal development, quality testing technology, molecular marker development and application, and training. In addition, He has authored 219 refereed journal articles in the last eight years alone, including publications in Crop Science, Euphytica, Journal of Cereal Science, and Journal of Theoretical and Applied Genetics.
Upon receiving the news of his promotion, He said: “Becoming a Distinguished Scientist was beyond my dreams ten years ago. It is a great honor, not only for me but also for my program and my fellow scientists and support staff. I am very grateful for the support and encouragement received from our colleagues at CIMMYT and CAAS, and thanks also to our collaborators in China and worldwide.”
Congratulations He and good luck in your new appointment.
Marianne Bänziger will move from her current position as director of the Global Maize Program (GMP) to become CIMMYT’s new deputy director general for research and partnerships, starting 1 October 2009. CIMMYT will refill the position of GMP director vacated by Bänziger as soon as a highly qualified candidate is identified. Between 1 October 2009 and the time it takes to fill the GMP director position, responsibilities will be assigned as follows:
Bänziger will supervise GMP activities in Asia and backstop major cross-program maize projects in Africa. She will also remain principal investigator for the Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa (DTMA) project.
Wilfred Mwangi, associate director, Africa, will supervise GMP activities in Africa.
Gary Atlin, associate director, molecular breeding, will supervise GMP activities in Latin America and all maize biotechnology activities.
Kevin Pixley will be moving to the University of Wisconsin effective 1 November 2009 from where he will continue to oversee global Maize Harvest Plus activities.
Two recent appointments within GMP will facilitate these changes: Félix San Vincente will start as senior scientist, maize breeder, Latin America in January 2010 and a soon-to-be-announced candidate will start as senior scientist, lead maize breeder for DTMA in October 2009. Both scientists bring highly relevant experience from the public and private sector.
Now that all of CIMMYT’s new program directors have been officially installed, it is time to get acquainted with them, as well as their ideas and plans for the programs. This month we feature Marianne Bänziger, director of the African Livelihoods Program.
She recently made history by becoming CIMMYT’s first ever female director, yet Marianne Bänziger, director of the African Livelihoods Program (ALP), refers to herself as “a smallholder farmer at heart.” Fortunate, then, that she heads a program with smallholder African farmers at its heart.
The ALP is one of CIMMYT’s largest and most multifaceted programs, working in and for a continent where, despite strides in agriculture in the rest of the world, food security still eludes 150 million people. “African agriculture continues to struggle under the interrelated constraints in infrastructure, education, politics, policies, technology, and health issues,” says Bänziger, speaking from nearly a decade’s experience living and working in the continent. “However, through combined efforts, Africa could solve its food security issues, and even become a net exporter of goods originating from a vibrant agricultural sector,” she says.
Bänziger has a track record of building strong teams from diverse quarters. She envisions the ALP as drawing on and focusing CIMMYT’s maize and wheat expertise to improve the livelihoods of the smallholder farmer in Africa. “It’s people who must power the process, so our program puts effective partnerships at the fore of its agenda,” she says. She expects ALP impacts to show up soon in several key areas, including:
New maize varieties and production packages that stabilize and increase farm-level productivity, improve nutrition, help farmers deal with climate and market variability, add value, and replenish natural resources.
Partnerships with other researchers, farming communities, extension staff, policy makers and civil society at large to increase resource-poor farmers’ access to input and produce markets.
An “honest broker” approach on genetically modified food crops.
True enhancement of Africa’s human and institutional capacities.
After spending much of her childhood on a 14-hectare farm in the hills of her native Switzerland, Bänziger joined the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, where she earned BSc, MSc, and PhD degrees, the latter in crop physiology in 1992. She joined CIMMYT as a postdoctoral fellow soon afterwards. In 1996, she was posted to the center’s research program in Zimbabwe—the first female scientist of the organization to work in a regional program—where she launched the Southern Africa Drought and Low Soil Fertility (SADLF) project. As part of this, she coordinated the work of CIMMYT and partners to develop improved, drought tolerant maize varieties for small-scale farmers in Africa. Always keeping the small-scale farmer in mind, she fostered the adoption of new approaches whereby breeders replicate farmers’ actual constraints on research stations and farmers take part in varietal testing and selection. The “stress-breeding” methodology and “mother-baby” participatory trials have spread to 16 countries in eastern and southern Africa. Most importantly, enough seed of the drought-tolerant maize, which yields 30% more than previously-sown varieties under dry conditions, has been produced to sow a million hectares in southern Africa alone in 2005.
Often asked whether gender has constrained her career, Bänziger responds philosophically: “As a newcomer in any field, you have to establish your credentials, irrespective of your gender. In Africa, I find myself in the company of many strong, high-ranking, and well respected women in various professions.” This year Bänziger relocated to the CIMMYT-ALP office in Nairobi, Kenya. “Wherever I am, I will continue doing my bit to help smallholder farmers in Africa achieve their hopes for the future—a decent standard of living, a better life for their children, and independence from food aid,” she says.
Acevedo believes her role with the DGGW is the perfect opportunity for her to facilitate how great work done by wheat scientists makes it to the field.
Rosalind Morris was a pioneer in agricultural science at a time when there were very few women scientists. Her achievements were groundbreaking: in 1947, Morris and Leona O. Schnell became the first women to graduate with doctoral degrees from 
At a time when women scientists were few and far between, Barbara McClintock made a name for herself as the most distinguished cytogeneticist in the field of science. From her early studies in genetics in the 1920s, to her 1940s breakthrough in mobile genetic elements, which led to her 1983 Nobel Prize, her legacy is one that still lingers today.
Now that all of CIMMYT’s new program directors have been officially installed, it is time to get acquainted with them, as well as their ideas and plans for the programs. This month we feature Marianne Bänziger, director of the African Livelihoods Program.