Staff

Dr Tally Wright

Tally is leading a group in quantitative genetics within the pre-breeding department at NIAB. The group explores statistical genetics, experimental design, and diverse methods of data analysis. Tally works across a range of ongoing research projects in Cambridge Crop Research division and is involved in the analysis and design of a number of diverse and important NIAB wheat collections.

Kate Waite

BASIS qualified Kate is responsible for coordinating agronomic (fungicide, insecticide, nutrition and PGR) trials focusing on cereals, oilseed rape and pulses. She is also responsible for the contract management of variety oilseed rape trials.

Dr Aoife O' Driscoll

Responsibilities

A molecular plant pathologist by training, Aoife has broad ranging experience in crop protection research, agronomy and knowledge transfer in the arable and horticulture crop sectors. Her PhD conducted with Teagasc investigated novel sources of resistance to Septoria tritici in wheat and the model grass species Brachypodium distachyon. She has since held roles in agrochemical regulatory science and as a field vegetable pathologist with ADAS, achieving her BASIS Certificate in Commercial Horticulture in 2018.

Colin Peters

Responsibilities

Colin has previously worked as a distributor agronomist and a farm manager for a large farm management organisation before moving on to work as Head of Farms for BBSRC, based at Rothamsted Research.

As NIAB's break crop specialist he provides specialist technical and scientific knowledge on the evaluation, selection and management of crop varieties, focusing on break crops including oilseed rape, linseed, pulses, sugar beet and other minor crops. As part of the role he helps coordinate the break crop trials programmes, working with staff across NIAB.

Professor Ji Zhou

Prof Ji Zhou (周济) is Head of the Data Sciences Department at NIAB. He is an expert in multi-scale plant and crop phenotyping, computer vision (CV) based trait analysis, IoT sensing, and artificial intelligence (AI) modelling. By combining phenotyping, genotyping and environmental data, Ji and his group are developing open-source hardware and software to address yield, quality, and disease related challenges for UK’s key agricultural and horticultural crops such as wheat, Brassica, strawberry, and orchard fruits.

Dr Michael Gifford

Responsibilities

Michael joined NIAB as Director of Commercialisation in March 2019. His role is to develop revenue streams based on the research and intellectual property being developed within NIAB. Within this he manages much of the SME engagement, is active in developing spin-out opportunities and is leading the development of Barn4, a new agri-tech incubator on NIAB’s campus in Cambridge.

Vanessa McMillan

Vanessa joined NIAB in May 2019 as the Technical Manager responsible for DUS (Distinctness, Uniformity and Stability) Testing of Cereals (barley, oats and wheat) on behalf of APHA for National Listing (NL) and Plant Breeder’s Rights (PBR).

Vanessa has a background in plant pathology and, prior to joining NIAB, her main research focus was the development of genetic strategies for the control of foliar and root diseases in wheat.

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