14th Annual Plant Sciences Symposium
The UW – Madison Plant Sciences Graduate Student Council (PSGSC) is excited to host our 14th Annual Plant Sciences Symposium on Friday, November 15th from 9AM – 4:30PM at the Discovery Building on UW – Madison’s campus.
This year’s symposium is titled: Growing into New Tech: Plant Sciences in Bloom and will explore the latest advancements in agriculture and plant science technologies.
This event is part of the Corteva Agriscience Symposia Series. We are thankful for their continued collaboration and support in fostering plant science connections across UW – Madison and beyond.
Countdown
Symposium Speakers:
Dr. Alex Wiedenhoeft – University of Wisconsin Madison
Dr. Alex C. Wiedenhoeft is a Research Botanist and Team Leader in the USDA Forest Products Laboratory’s Center for Wood Anatomy Research, where his research program emphasizes botanical wood anatomy, forensic wood science, and biocentric wood science. He holds academic positions at the University of Wisconsin- Madison, Purdue University, São Paulo State University- Botucatu, and Mississippi State University, is an elected Fellow of the International Academy of Wood Science, a Deputy Executive Secretary of the International Association of Wood Anatomists, and an Associate Editor for Frontiers in Plant Science. His educational activities focus on various aspects of forensic botany, wood science for baseball bat manufacturers, and wood science and technology for the U.S. flooring industry at large. Dr. Wiedenhoeft is one of the pioneers of the XyloTron wood identification platform, the inventor of the XyloPhone, and works actively with law enforcement in the US and abroad to bring wood forensic technologies to bear in support of legal and sustainable use of forest products.
Stephen Schwartz – John Deere
Stephen Schwartz, originally from Noblesville, IN, graduated from Purdue University in 2020 with degrees in Agronomy: Crop and Soil Science and Agribusiness Management. He then received a Master of Science in Crop Science from the Crop Physiology Lab at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 2022. Stephen now works for John Deere as the Eastern Region Corn & Soy Test Lead coordinating on farm agronomic trials with John Deere dealers and customers. Stephen and his wife, Kaya, live in Muscatine, Iowa.
Nate Kingsley – University of Hawai’i at Mānoa
Nate Kingsley serves as the Seed Conservation Lab Manager at Lyon Arboretum in Honolulu, Hawaii. Before joining Lyon, he worked at the University of Tennessee, conducting phylogenetic analysis to reconstruct species relationships and taxonomic distinctions of bryophytes, fungi, and vascular plants. He also served as the Curation Manager at the University of Tennessee Herbarium, focusing on digitizing the plant collection and modernizing the seed collection. His research interests include population ecology, plant phylogenetic relationships, seed storage behavior and dormancy, and native plant development for conservation. Specifically, he is interested in how biotic and abiotic factors shape plant population dynamics, phenology, and their responses to disturbances – examining the evolutionary convergence of recalcitrant, or desiccation-sensitive, seeds of endemic Hawaiian species and how the production and function of plant hormones regulate seed physiology. Additionally, he is interested in utilizing seed morphology data to trace evolutionary history. Elucidating Hawaiʻi’s broad patterns of divergence and connectivity requires parsing the genetic implications of seed phenotypes en masse from large databases. An expansive new trove of Hawaiian seed morphology data developed by his team at the Lyon Arboretum Seed Conservation Lab meets this need, uncovering emergent phylogenies across hundreds of species by integrating visual patterns with taxonomic context via computational methods.
Dr. Yi Wang – University of Wisconsin- Madison
Yi Wang is an Associate Professor and State Extension Specialist, with a research focus on sustainable vegetable production and precision agriculture, at the University of Wisconsin – Madison Department of Plant and Agroecosystem Sciences. Yi got her B.S. in biology from Nanjing Agricultural University in China, and her Ph.D. in plant physiology here at UW-Madison. The goal of her research and extension program is to conduct science-based applied research and collaborate with the vegetable growers and processors to improve the resource use efficiency and sustainability of vegetable cropping systems in Wisconsin. Yi has won several national awards such as the American Fruit and Vegetable 40 under 40 Award, the Agronomy Society of America Excellence in Extension Awards, the Spudman Emerging Leader Award, etc.
Dr. Joe Gage – North Carolina State University
Joe Gage’s research program is focused on linking crop genomic and phenomics to understand how to develop more resilient and productive crop varieties. Current projects include studying how sequence variation controls gene regulation; how gene regulation contributes to genotype-by-environment interactions; and novel methods for processing and interpreting high throughput phenotyping data.
Dr. Matthew Clover- Corteva Agriscience
Dr. Matt Clover is the Agronomy Innovation Data Leader at Corteva Agriscience. Matt Leads a team that works with stakeholders from across the Corteva North American seed sales and marketing teams to identify critical agronomic and product performance information needs. His team delivers analyses and reporting to facilitate informed decision making that drives business growth. Matt first joined Pioneer in 2017 as an Agronomy Research Manager within the Pioneer Agronomy Sciences group. Prior to that, he spent 9 years in the fertilizer industry with various roles in agronomy and research and development. Matt earned his B.S. in Crop Sciences and M.S. in Soil Fertility from the University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign, and a Ph.D. in Soil Science from Iowa State University and is currently a Certified Professional Soil Scientist.