Dr. G. Craig Yencho is a William Neal Reynolds Distinguished Professor, and he leads the Sweetpotato and Potato Breeding programs at NC State University. He has over 25 years of experience in plant breeding, and his variety development efforts are focused on the genetic mapping of important traits in potato and sweetpotato; the development of value-added and bio-based products in both crops; and international agriculture, primarily in sub-Saharan Africa.

Dr. Bode Olukolu is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology at the University of Tennessee – Knoxville, Institute of Agriculture. His research focuses on dissecting genome structure and function to better understand: Complex plant-pathogen interactions, the influence of the microbiome on plant disease resistance, and genetic factors underlying traits and their application for marker-assisted and genomic selection.

Dr. Sachiko Isobe is the Laboratory Head of Plant Genomics and Genetics at the Kazusa DNA Research Institute in Kisarazu, Chiba, Japan. She started her career as a conventional red clover breeder in 1997. Dr. Isobe’s research team is performing de novo whole genome sequencing, DNA marker development, linkage map construction, QTL identification and marker assisted selection for diverse plant species and they have performed sequencing and analysis of the genomes such as sweetpotato, strawberry, and forages with collaborators in Japan, China, USA and several countries in the world.