Governance

Integrity. Inclusivity. International excellence.

These are the core values that guide us in achieving our aims while fostering a collaborative mindset for all of plant science.

We are governed by an Executive Committee, which has several focused sub-committees, and we receive advice and guidance from a Centre Advisory Committee and a Science Advisory Panel.

Developing our researchers is important to us, so each committee is open to an early-career researcher to represent this cohort of our team.

CENTRE ADVISORY COMMITTEE

The Centre Advisory Committee: 

  • contributes to the development of our strategies and vision; 
  • establishes and strengthens linkages between academia, industry and government; 
  • advises the leadership team and the administering organisation on our strategic research focus, our structure and general operating principles, and management of intellectual property and commercialisation. 

Members include representatives of government, academia, the plant science community, industry, business, law and policy, and research and development corporations. View Centre Advisory Committee Terms of Reference.

JOHN MANNERS

Centre Advisory Committee
Chair

RICHARD DICKMANN

Centre Advisory Committee

HENRIETTA MARRIE AM

Centre Advisory Committee

PAULINE OKEMO

The University of Queensland
Postdoctoral Researcher

JULIA PLAYFORD

Centre Advisory Committee

JOANNE TOMPKINS

Centre Advisory Committee

Centre Advisory Committee
Chair

JOHN MANNERS

Born in London, Dr John Manners completed a PhD on fungal phytopathogen biochemistry at Imperial College, The University of London. He worked briefly in the agrochemical industry in the United Kingdom before coming to Australia to take up a postdoctoral research post at the Biochemistry Department of The University of Queensland in Brisbane in 1980. He joined CSIRO in 1985 and has led research in plant biotechnology for Australian agriculture, including tropical legumes, sugar cane and cereal crops. 

John moved to Canberra in 2012 to take up the role of Chief of CSIRO Plant Industry and then Director of CSIRO Agriculture and Food in 2014 until he retired from CSIRO in 2019. Currently, he is an Honorary Fellow of CSIRO and an Adjunct Professor at the School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences at The University of Queensland and resides in Northern NSW. 

John has a strong commitment to innovative research that provides robust intellectual property for Australia to improve its primary industry exports and also to make Australia a major contributor of technology for sustainable global food security. He has published more than 200 refereed research journal articles and is co-inventor on several patent applications on plant biotechnology. 

Centre Advisory Committee

RICHARD DICKMANN

Richard Dickmann is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and is currently a Non-Executive Director of the Grains Research and Development Corporation, and sits on the advisory board of the Australian Plant Phenomics Facility. Richard was formerly a Director of Cotton Grower Services Pty Ltd and a member of the Bayer Australia Ltd Board. 
 
Richard obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Forest Science at the University of Melbourne and a Master of Science in Agriculture at the University of Sydney. Richard initially worked in state government agricultural extension before undertaking a 20-year international career in agribusiness, which involved postings to France, Singapore, Japan, China and Germany. Richard gained broad experience in research prioritization, marketing, global product management, product development and commercial operations. 
 
Returning to Australia in 2009, Richard led New Business Development and Public and Government Affairs roles within Bayer and worked to identify new business opportunities combining the innovation power of Australian and international organizations. Richard now offers consulting on innovation and sustainability topics via his consultancy Apical Advisory. 

Centre Advisory Committee

HENRIETTA MARRIE AM

Henrietta Marrie AM (Masters in Environmental and Local Government Law; Dip. T; Grad. Dip. of Arts [Indigenous Studies]) is an Elder of the Gimuy Walubara clan of the Yidinji people, Sovereign Owners of the land on which the City of Cairns and southern suburbs are now located. Henrietta has wide experience in Indigenous cultural and natural resource management and impact assessment, intellectual and cultural property law, heritage legislation and philanthropy. As an academic she has had published over 50 papers in books and journals. She served for 6 years with the UN Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity in Montreal, before becoming the Program Officer/Manager for North Australia with The Christensen Fund, a California-based private philanthropic fund, a position in which she served for nine years. She was also a Visiting Fellow with the United Nations University – Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability (based in Tokyo, and which serves as a research institution and “think tank” for various UN agencies) working on the Institute’s Traditional Knowledge Initiative. Henrietta served as Associate Professor (Indigenous Engagement) and director of the First Peoples Think Tank with Central Queensland University, working from the Cairns campus from 2015 to June 2020. She is a Co-Patron of the Cairns Indigenous Art Fair, a position she shares with the Governor of Queensland. Henrietta is listed among the Westpac and Australian Financial Review 100 Women of Influence for 2014 for her work in public policy. On January 26th 2018 Henrietta was made a Member of the Order of Australia in the General Division, and on June 8th she was recognised as a Queensland Great. Subject of a stunning mural portrait by Claire Foxton on the southern wall of the Cairns Corporate Tower, Lake Street, Henrietta’s life and accomplishments have also been dramatised in the play Bukal produced by the JUTE Theatre Company in association with CQUniversity, and which premiered on 10th July 2018. In November 2020 Henrietta was appointed Honorary Professor at the University of Queensland and is an expert adviser to the Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation.

The University of Queensland
Postdoctoral Researcher

PAULINE OKEMO

Pauline has recently started a Postdoc focussing on gene editing in wild rices to understand domestication and evolution. She is interested in understanding the mechanisms and pathways that crop wild relatives utilize to survive and succeed in nature. She is keen to unravel these secrets using modern biotechnology tools. Pauline has always enjoyed cooking, eating and ‘socializing’ with rice. Getting to understand what led to rice domestication and discovering novel alleles to aid in rice breeding using genome editing is something she is looking forward to. Pauline has a background in transformation of both legumes and cereals, understanding mechanisms of abiotic stress tolerance, programmed cell death and is interested in research that will transform farmers and breeders lives while making an impact in the scientific community. Pauline has extensive experience and skills in plant molecular biology, cloning, gene editing, genetic engineering, and bioinformatics from her work at ICRISAT-Nairobi, Plant Transformation laboratory-Kenyatta University (Nairobi), Biosciences Eastern and Central Africa (BecA-ILRI Hub), John Innes Centre (Norwich) and Queensland University of Technology. Pauline is delighted to be part of the CoE and is really looking forward to engaging with other researchers within the centre.

Centre Advisory Committee

JULIA PLAYFORD

Dr Julia Playford is the Executive Director of the Science Strategy and Partnerships team, Science and Technology of the Queensland Department of Environment and Science. Julia has over 20 years’ experience in government leading and managing high performing teams developing and implementing science and innovation policies, strategies, and programs. 

Prior to commencing her current role, Julia was the Director of Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Sciences for the Queensland Government, managing a team of high performing staff including ecotoxicologists, chemists, biologists, and engineers. This group worked primarily on water and air monitoring, providing science assessments for activities regulated under the Environmental Protection Act, and scientific studies related to water and air quality.

Julia studied botany at The University of Western Australia and completed a PhD in evolutionary genetics at the Australian National University.  

Centre Advisory Committee

JOANNE TOMPKINS

Professor Emerita Joanne Tompkins was a professor of theatre at The University of Queensland where she has held multiple roles, including Head of School and Associate Dean Research. For three years, she was Executive Director for Humanities and Creative Arts at the Australian Research Council. She has published widely on theatre. 

Her work in digital humanities, specifically in visualising theatres that no longer exist, is done through the company, Ortelia, and the open-access digital resource, AusStage, which documents Australian performing arts materials. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Humanities; a member of the UK’s REF evaluation panel; the recipient of an honorary doctorate from Queen Mary, University of London; and an executive committee member for the International Federation for Theatre Research.  

SCIENCE ADVISORY PANEL

The Science Advisory Panel advises on, and guides, our research planning and research outputs, to ensure the rigour of our research and the quality of our research outputs are at world-leading standard. 

With experience spanning the fields of plant development, evolution, modelling and crop science, the Panel also offers an international perspective on our research field, advising Centre leaders and the Advisory Committee on our strategic research direction. 

Members include senior personnel from leading international organisations (some of which are our partners), the Australian Government, and Australian research and development corporations. View Science Advisory Panel Terms of Reference.

MARILYN ANDERSON

Science Advisory Panel
Chair

MARIANNE BÄNZIGER

Science Advisory Panel

BETTINA BERGER

Science Advisory Panel

YANG LIU

The University of Queensland
Postdoctoral Researcher

BRUCE WALSH

Science Advisory Panel

DETLEF WEIGEL

Science Advisory Panel

Science Advisory Panel
Chair

MARILYN ANDERSON

Professor Marilyn Anderson AO, FAA, FSTE is a Professor of Biochemistry at La Trobe University and is Chief Science Officer of Hexima, a Biotechnology Company that she founded with Prof Adrienne Clarke in 1998.

After completing a BSc Honours at The University of Melbourne and a PhD in Biochemistry at La Trobe University Marilyn spent seven years in the United States working on diabetes at the University of Miami and oncogenes at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.  She joined the ARC COE in Plant Cell Biology at the University of Melbourne in 1982 where she discovered and cloned the genes that control self-incompatibility, a genetic system that allows flowering plants to recognise and reject self-pollen to ensure outbreeding and hybrid vigour in the progeny.

In 1995 Marilyn returned to the Biochemistry Department at La Trobe University. Her current work is focussed on proteins and peptides, that are produced by plants for protection against insect pests and fungal pathogens. Her research spans from basic work on the biosynthesis, structure and mechanism of action of plant defensins and cyclic peptides, to their practical applications in agriculture and the treatment of fungal infections in humans.

Marilyn is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science and the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering. Other awards include the Ramachiotti Biomedical Research Award, 2015 (with Prof. David Craik, UQ), the Lemberg Medal from the Australian Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in 2014 and the Leach Medal from the Lorne Protein Society in 2017. Professor Anderson was made an Officer of the Order of Australia in the 2016 Australia Day Honours list.

Science Advisory Panel

MARIANNE BÄNZIGER

Marianne Bänziger is a strategic advisor to international agricultural research leaders and implementation teams, currently working mostly with CGIAR. With a PhD in Natural Sciences from ETH Zürich, Switzerland, she joined CIMMYT in 1992 as a post-doctoral fellow. Between 1996 and 2004 she led CIMMYT’s collaborative maize stress breeding activities in southern Africa which produced impactful varieties and publications, and a cohort of inspired scientists. She became Maize Program Director in 2004 and CIMMYT Deputy Director General, Research and Partnerships in 2009 where she initiated the development and design of several large multi-institutional, multidisciplinary partnerships such as the CGIAR Research Programs on MAIZE and WHEAT, the Excellence in Breeding Platform, and Seeds of Discovery. Between 2007 and 2017, she was also one of three standing members of the scientific and technical advisory board of a leading agtech company, gaining deep insight into the approaches and reforms of a complex multinational bioscience organization.

Science Advisory Panel

BETTINA BERGER

Pronouns: She/Her

After a Masters degree in biotechnology and a PhD in plant molecular biology, Bettina used a two-year fellowship to focus on the emerging field of plant phenomics. Bettina joined the Australian Centre for Plant Functional Genomics in 2008, where she used non-destructive imaging to study the effects of salinity on barley.

In 2010, Bettina joined the newly established Plant Accelerator as Senior Scientist and became Scientific Director in 2015. The Plant Accelerator is one of the nodes of the Australian Plant Phenomics Facility (APPF) funded under the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) and provides critical infrastructure and services to the plant science community. In her roles, Bettina has set up novel screening techniques to study plant growth and performance using automated, non-destructive imaging. She has engaged with researchers at all stages of their career, from the public sector and industry. The Plant Accelerator is accessed by researchers from Australia and overseas, including users from Europe, North America and Saudi Arabia. Bettina enjoys the opportunity to host visiting students and scientists and train them in modern phenotyping approaches. She has managed large scale phenotyping projects looking at various aspects of plant performance, including early vigour, salinity tolerance and nutrient use efficiency.

While her basic research has focused on salinity tolerance, Bettina is equally passionate about developing novel phenotyping approaches to support plant scientists in answering their research questions. Working together with customers and learning from each other to achieve the best possible outcome for their research project has been her biggest motivation.

The University of Queensland
Postdoctoral Researcher

YANG LIU

Pronouns: He/Him

Dr. Yang Liu is an evolutionary geneticist, currently working at the University of Queensland (UQ) as a Research Fellow. Prior to UQ, he obtained a PhD at the University of British Columbia (UBC) and worked in research as a postdoc at UBC and University of Cambridge. He is broadly interested in the eco-evolutionary dynamics of plant populations that have undergone environmental heterogeneity over spatiotemporal scales. The goal of his research is to increase our understanding of the impacts of major episodes in plant demography and life histories on trait evolution.

Science Advisory Panel

BRUCE WALSH

Bruce Walsh is a population and quantitative geneticist with very diverse interests in plant and animal breeding, evolutionary biology, and statistical methods.  He obtained a BS in Mathematical Population Biology from UC Davis, and a PhD in genetics from the University of Washington. He is currently a Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Plant Sciences, and Public Health at the University of Arizona. He is perhaps best known for the two graduate textbooks on quantitative genetics that he coauthored with Mike Lynch (Lynch & Walsh, 1998, Genetics and Analysis of Quantitative Traits [a new version, along with Peter Visscher at UQ, is in the works]; and Walsh & Lynch 2018, Evolution and Selection of Quantitative Traits). He has taught almost 100 short courses on quantitative genetics in over two dozen countries, on all continents (except for Antarctica, where he is still awaiting an invitation). He is also an avid Lepidopterist, having described almost 30 new species of moths and has three species named after him.

Science Advisory Panel

DETLEF WEIGEL

Detlef Weigel, a German-American scientist, is currently a Director at the Max Planck Institute for Biology Tübingen. He is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina and the Royal Society, and a recipient of several scientific awards, most recently the Novozymes Prize of the Novo Nordisk Foundation. He is among the ten most highly cited plant scientists in the world.

The first major finding from his lab was that an Arabidopsis gene could dramatically accelerate flowering of trees; this established a proof of concept for Arabidopsis genetics as a platform for biotechnological discoveries. His group later discovered the first plant microRNA mutant and identified the factor that we now know to be the long sought-after mobile flower-inducing signal. Detlef was also one of the first to exploit natural genetic variation for understanding how the environment affects plant development. In recent years, this work has come to incorporate questions at the interface of evolution and ecology: How can wild plants adapt to climate change, and how do they manage to keep their pathogens at bay? In this research, he draws on the fruits of a collaborative effort initiated over a decade ago to sequence the genomes of over 1,000 natural A. thaliana strains (The 1001 Genomes Project).

Detlef has an extensive record of service to the scientific community, having served on a series of editorial and advisory boards. He is a forceful advocate of open access publishing and founding Deputy Editor of eLife. He is a co-founder of three biotech startups.

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

The Executive Committee supports the Centre Director in making important management decisions. The Committee ensures that its membership adequately represents each of our major research themes. View Executive Committee Terms of Reference.

CHRISTINE BEVERIDGE

The University of Queensland
Centre Director
Chief Investigator

MARK COOPER

The University of Queensland
Deputy Director
Chief Investigator

JOHN BOWMAN

Monash University
Node Leader and Researcher Development Co-Leader
Chief Investigator

TIM BRODRIBB

University of Tasmania
Node Leader
Chief Investigator

ROBERT HENRY

The University of Queensland
Node Leader
Chief Investigator

PETER WATERHOUSE

Queensland University of Technology
Node Leader
Chief Investigator

IAN WRIGHT

Western Sydney University
Node Leader
Chief Investigator

DANIEL ORTIZ-BARRIENTOS

The University of Queensland
Researcher Development Co-Leader
Chief Investigator

ELOISE FOO

University of Tasmania
Outreach Leader
Chief Investigator

DAVID TOMLINS

The University of Queensland
Chief Operating Officer

The University of Queensland
Centre Director
Chief Investigator

CHRISTINE BEVERIDGE

Professor Christine Beveridge is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, an ARC Georgina Sweet Laureate Fellow, a highly cited researcher and an affiliated professor at the Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation.

Up until she commenced her Laureate Fellowship, she was Associate Dean of Research and Deputy Executive Dean at The University of Queensland Faculty of Science. She is also former Chair of the Faculty’s Equity and Diversity Committee.

Christine was both the first female and first Australasian president of the International Plant Growth Substances Association.

The role of plant hormones in regulating and coordinating plant development, particularly shoot architecture, has been the focus of her research. She discovered the plant hormone strigolactone and that sugar signalling is a driver of shoot branching.

More recently her focus has shifted to identifying how different genetic and physiological networks work together to control plant productivity.

Christine’s contributions to plant science, combined with her industry experience, leadership skills, and her global network of research collaborators and industry partners, make her the ideal leader of the Centre’s multidisciplinary research program.

Projects

Christine is Chief Investigator of the following project:

Integration of physiology and development of traits underpinning plant success

The University of Queensland
Deputy Director
Chief Investigator

MARK COOPER

Pronouns: He/Him

Professor Mark Cooper is Chair of Prediction Based Crop Improvement at The University of Queensland, and a global leader in quantitative genetics and plant breeding. His work involves integrating genomic prediction and crop growth models into an ‘end to end’ framework for crop improvement.

Professor Cooper has pioneered the development of novel genetic modelling methodologies, based on gene networks, to study important properties of quantitative traits in biology, and demonstrated how this new genetic modelling framework can be successfully used in plant breeding to improve prediction of important traits under the influences of selection. Professor Cooper’s work at DuPont Pioneer on drought adaptation in one of the largest maize breeding programs in the world led to the AQUAmax hybrids that presently cover millions of hectares worldwide.

A quantitative geneticist by training, Professor Cooper spent 20 years working with industry in the United States and as CEO of his own consultancy firm Zenrun42, before returning to UQ to build upon the critical mass of predictive agricultural expertise in QAAFI and the wider university.

Projects

Mark is Chief Investigator of the following project:

Discovering new pathways to enhance breeding predictions by integrating genome to phenome and hierarchical biological models

Monash University
Node Leader and Researcher Development Co-Leader
Chief Investigator

JOHN BOWMAN

Pronouns: He/Him

Professor John Bowman is focused on the evolution and development of land plants. His lab uses the flowering plant Arabidopsis thaliana and the liverwort Marchantia polymorpha as model genetic systems.  

John obtained his BSc in Biochemistry from the University of Illinois and PhD at Caltech with Elliot Meyerowitz working on Arabidopsis flower development. He then undertook a Postdoctoral position with David Smyth (Monash Uni) working on flower development. From 1995-2006 he was at the University of California, Davis working on developmental genetics of seed plant leaves.

Today, John and his lab at Monash University are investigating the evolution and molecular basis of the alternation of generations of land plants, whereby both the haploid and diploid phases of the life cycle develop complex multicellular bodies.  

They are also interested in the origin of pattern formation and development of land plant body plans in both generations. 

John is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science and a former ARC Federation Fellow whose experience in regulatory gene networks will enable discovery in Program 1 that will drive models developed in Program 2.  

Projects

John is Chief Investigator of the following project: 

Land plant genetic network innovations

University of Tasmania
Node Leader
Chief Investigator

TIM BRODRIBB

Professor Tim Brodribb is a professor of plant physiology, a former ARC Future Fellow and a highly cited researcher.

His research is focused on how plants transport and use water, which is one of the most important factors determining their survival or extinction.

He has made fundamental discoveries on how plants have evolved to cope with dry environments.

Tim’s awards include a Putnam Fellowship from the Arnold Arboretum at Harvard University (2007), the Grady L. Webster Structural Botany Prize from the American Journal of Botany (2009), the W.S. Cooper Award from the Ecological Society of America (2012) and a Thomson Reuters Citation and Innovation Award in 2015.

His extensive experience working across plant taxa and across evolutionary scales will drive our research on predicting phenotypes and maximise the integration within this program.

Tim will also adapt his revolutionary techniques for monitoring efficiency and vulnerability in plant water transport into a phenotyping platform that we will use to drive discovery in plant drought tolerance.

Projects

Tim is Chief Investigator of the following projects:

Connecting plant water relations phenotype to whole plant success – Bryophytes

Connecting plant water relations phenotype to whole plant success

Evolution of eucalyptus clade to heat and water storage

The University of Queensland
Node Leader
Chief Investigator

ROBERT HENRY

Pronouns: He/Him

Robert Henry is a Professor of Innovation in Agriculture whose speciality research area is the study of agricultural crops using molecular tools.

He is particularly interested in Australian flora and plants of economic and social importance and has led the way in research into genome sequencing to capture novel genetic resources for the diversification of food crops to deliver improved food products.

Robert has previously held the roles of QAAFI Director (May 2010-September 2020), Director of the Centre for Plant Conservation Genetics at Southern Cross University, Research Director of the Grain Foods Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) (until 2010) and Research Program Leader in the Queensland Agricultural Biotechnology Centre (until 1996).

Projects

Robert is Chief Investigator of the following projects:

Genomic analysis of mechanisms of adaptive evolution

Genome manipulation technology development and application to analysis of stress response networks

Queensland University of Technology
Node Leader
Chief Investigator

PETER WATERHOUSE

Professor Peter Waterhouse is a professor of molecular genetics with a long-established track record for research on gene regulation and genome harmony, and for group leadership and industrial translation. 

A Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, an ARC Laureate Fellow, and a former ARC Federation Fellow, Peter is internationally recognised for his plant, animal and viral research, making fundamental discoveries that have led to widespread and real-world applications. The impact of his work has been profound, and he is particularly renowned for his research on RNA interference (RNAi). 

Peter has been awarded many scientific honours in Australia, including the Prime Minister’s Prize for Science, CSIRO Chairman’s medal, the Victor Chang Medal, and election to the Australian Academy of Science. 

Leading our program on responsible innovation, his expertise will guide integration with our other two programs, and guide the translation of our research to the CSIRO and to the breeding industry. 

Projects

Peter is Chief Investigator of the following project: 

Genome editing for complex trait enhancement

 

Western Sydney University
Node Leader
Chief Investigator

IAN WRIGHT

Pronouns: He/Him

Distinguished Professor Ian Wright is a highly cited plant functional ecologist best known for global-scale analysis of plant traits, for careful quantification of plant structure-function relationships, and for using concepts from economics to understand plant ecology and evolution.  

Ian is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Sciences, and 2020 recipient of the NSW Premier’s Prize for Science & Engineering – Biological Sciences.  

Ian’s experience will enable the Centre for Plant Success to bridge the field-based sampling with lab-based studies to explore the full range of plant diversity. 

Projects

Ian is Chief Investigator of the following projects: 

Adaptations to heat and water stress in Andropogoneae grasses

Leaf cuticle properties

The University of Queensland
Researcher Development Co-Leader
Chief Investigator

DANIEL ORTIZ-BARRIENTOS

Pronouns: He/Him

Professor Daniel Ortiz-Barrientos studies the genetics of speciation and adaptation.  

Daniel and his lab have developed a new system of research to study the replicated evolution of traits and reproductive isolation. He is also interested in the role of sexual selection on plant speciation and the evolution of sexual recombination. His research approach integrates ideas and tools from evolutionary theory, genetics and genomics, systems biology, and more recently physiology.  

Daniel has been awarded the Young Investigator Prize from the American Society of Naturalists, The Larry Sandler Award from the Genetics Society of America, and a Killam Fellowship from the Killam Foundation in Canada. He is currently an Australian Research Council Future Fellow (Level E) 

Projects

Daniel is Chief Investigator of the following project: 

Predicting adaptive trajectories in natural systems 

 

University of Tasmania
Outreach Leader
Chief Investigator

ELOISE FOO

Pronouns: She/Her

Dr Eloise Foo is a plant developmental biologist who is interested in how plants interact with their environment and how this is regulated by plant hormones: small, mobile, potent signals. Eloise also holds an ARC grant that aims to decode the signals important for plant-microbe interactions.

She has contributed to the discovery of and current understanding of the newest plant hormone group, strigolactones, and has defined novel roles for plant hormones in plants relationships with beneficial and pathogenic microbes.

Eloise’s research will contribute heavily to the Program 1 agenda to define the underpinnings of plant productivity.

Projects

Eloise is Chief Investigator of the following project:

Domestication underground – exploring how modification of plant hormone signalling, including during plant breeding, influences beneficial plant-microbe symbiosis

The University of Queensland
Chief Operating Officer

DAVID TOMLINS

Pronouns: He/Him

David is the Chief Operating Officer for the Centre.

Prior to joining the Centre for Plant Success, he supported the establishment and scale-up of Food Agility CRC and Digital Health CRC, Cooperative Research Centres of national importance, as the Chief Operating Officer and Program Director respectively.

David previously held senior executive roles in corporate strategy and management consulting driving innovative technology throughout the Asia Pacific region.

He is an avid believer in the benefits of collaborative research between academia, industry, and government. Particularly in tackling the impact of anthropogenic climate change.

The Executive Committee has three sub-committees and working groups:

TRANSLATION AND IMPACT COMMITTEE

The purpose of the Translation and Impact Committee is to provide advice to the Centre Executive Committee to maximise the adoption and impact of the Centre's research outputs in a manner that is consistent with the overarching goals of the Centre. View Translation and Impact Committee Terms of Reference.

MARK COOPER

The University of Queensland
Deputy Director
Chief Investigator

DAVID TOMLINS

The University of Queensland
Chief Operating Officer

CHRISTINE BEVERIDGE

The University of Queensland
Centre Director
Chief Investigator

ROBERT HENRY

The University of Queensland
Node Leader
Chief Investigator

BRAD SHERMAN

The University of Queensland
Chief Investigator

PETER WATERHOUSE

Queensland University of Technology
Node Leader
Chief Investigator

IAN WRIGHT

Western Sydney University
Node Leader
Chief Investigator

ELOISE FOO

University of Tasmania
Outreach Leader
Chief Investigator

The University of Queensland
Deputy Director
Chief Investigator

MARK COOPER

Pronouns: He/Him

Professor Mark Cooper is Chair of Prediction Based Crop Improvement at The University of Queensland, and a global leader in quantitative genetics and plant breeding. His work involves integrating genomic prediction and crop growth models into an ‘end to end’ framework for crop improvement.

Professor Cooper has pioneered the development of novel genetic modelling methodologies, based on gene networks, to study important properties of quantitative traits in biology, and demonstrated how this new genetic modelling framework can be successfully used in plant breeding to improve prediction of important traits under the influences of selection. Professor Cooper’s work at DuPont Pioneer on drought adaptation in one of the largest maize breeding programs in the world led to the AQUAmax hybrids that presently cover millions of hectares worldwide.

A quantitative geneticist by training, Professor Cooper spent 20 years working with industry in the United States and as CEO of his own consultancy firm Zenrun42, before returning to UQ to build upon the critical mass of predictive agricultural expertise in QAAFI and the wider university.

Projects

Mark is Chief Investigator of the following project:

Discovering new pathways to enhance breeding predictions by integrating genome to phenome and hierarchical biological models

The University of Queensland
Chief Operating Officer

DAVID TOMLINS

Pronouns: He/Him

David is the Chief Operating Officer for the Centre.

Prior to joining the Centre for Plant Success, he supported the establishment and scale-up of Food Agility CRC and Digital Health CRC, Cooperative Research Centres of national importance, as the Chief Operating Officer and Program Director respectively.

David previously held senior executive roles in corporate strategy and management consulting driving innovative technology throughout the Asia Pacific region.

He is an avid believer in the benefits of collaborative research between academia, industry, and government. Particularly in tackling the impact of anthropogenic climate change.

The University of Queensland
Centre Director
Chief Investigator

CHRISTINE BEVERIDGE

Professor Christine Beveridge is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, an ARC Georgina Sweet Laureate Fellow, a highly cited researcher and an affiliated professor at the Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation.

Up until she commenced her Laureate Fellowship, she was Associate Dean of Research and Deputy Executive Dean at The University of Queensland Faculty of Science. She is also former Chair of the Faculty’s Equity and Diversity Committee.

Christine was both the first female and first Australasian president of the International Plant Growth Substances Association.

The role of plant hormones in regulating and coordinating plant development, particularly shoot architecture, has been the focus of her research. She discovered the plant hormone strigolactone and that sugar signalling is a driver of shoot branching.

More recently her focus has shifted to identifying how different genetic and physiological networks work together to control plant productivity.

Christine’s contributions to plant science, combined with her industry experience, leadership skills, and her global network of research collaborators and industry partners, make her the ideal leader of the Centre’s multidisciplinary research program.

Projects

Christine is Chief Investigator of the following project:

Integration of physiology and development of traits underpinning plant success

The University of Queensland
Node Leader
Chief Investigator

ROBERT HENRY

Pronouns: He/Him

Robert Henry is a Professor of Innovation in Agriculture whose speciality research area is the study of agricultural crops using molecular tools.

He is particularly interested in Australian flora and plants of economic and social importance and has led the way in research into genome sequencing to capture novel genetic resources for the diversification of food crops to deliver improved food products.

Robert has previously held the roles of QAAFI Director (May 2010-September 2020), Director of the Centre for Plant Conservation Genetics at Southern Cross University, Research Director of the Grain Foods Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) (until 2010) and Research Program Leader in the Queensland Agricultural Biotechnology Centre (until 1996).

Projects

Robert is Chief Investigator of the following projects:

Genomic analysis of mechanisms of adaptive evolution

Genome manipulation technology development and application to analysis of stress response networks

The University of Queensland
Chief Investigator

BRAD SHERMAN

Pronouns: He/Him

Professor Brad Sherman is an ARC Laureate Fellow based in the law school at The University of Queensland. His research expertise encompasses many aspects of intellectual property law, with a particular emphasis on its historical, doctrinal and conceptual development.  

Projects

Brad is Chief Investigator of the following projects:  

Quantitative biology and the law 

Access to genetic resources 

Freedom to operate with genetic technologies 

Molecular markers/sequence data

Queensland University of Technology
Node Leader
Chief Investigator

PETER WATERHOUSE

Professor Peter Waterhouse is a professor of molecular genetics with a long-established track record for research on gene regulation and genome harmony, and for group leadership and industrial translation. 

A Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, an ARC Laureate Fellow, and a former ARC Federation Fellow, Peter is internationally recognised for his plant, animal and viral research, making fundamental discoveries that have led to widespread and real-world applications. The impact of his work has been profound, and he is particularly renowned for his research on RNA interference (RNAi). 

Peter has been awarded many scientific honours in Australia, including the Prime Minister’s Prize for Science, CSIRO Chairman’s medal, the Victor Chang Medal, and election to the Australian Academy of Science. 

Leading our program on responsible innovation, his expertise will guide integration with our other two programs, and guide the translation of our research to the CSIRO and to the breeding industry. 

Projects

Peter is Chief Investigator of the following project: 

Genome editing for complex trait enhancement

 

Western Sydney University
Node Leader
Chief Investigator

IAN WRIGHT

Pronouns: He/Him

Distinguished Professor Ian Wright is a highly cited plant functional ecologist best known for global-scale analysis of plant traits, for careful quantification of plant structure-function relationships, and for using concepts from economics to understand plant ecology and evolution.  

Ian is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Sciences, and 2020 recipient of the NSW Premier’s Prize for Science & Engineering – Biological Sciences.  

Ian’s experience will enable the Centre for Plant Success to bridge the field-based sampling with lab-based studies to explore the full range of plant diversity. 

Projects

Ian is Chief Investigator of the following projects: 

Adaptations to heat and water stress in Andropogoneae grasses

Leaf cuticle properties

University of Tasmania
Outreach Leader
Chief Investigator

ELOISE FOO

Pronouns: She/Her

Dr Eloise Foo is a plant developmental biologist who is interested in how plants interact with their environment and how this is regulated by plant hormones: small, mobile, potent signals. Eloise also holds an ARC grant that aims to decode the signals important for plant-microbe interactions.

She has contributed to the discovery of and current understanding of the newest plant hormone group, strigolactones, and has defined novel roles for plant hormones in plants relationships with beneficial and pathogenic microbes.

Eloise’s research will contribute heavily to the Program 1 agenda to define the underpinnings of plant productivity.

Projects

Eloise is Chief Investigator of the following project:

Domestication underground – exploring how modification of plant hormone signalling, including during plant breeding, influences beneficial plant-microbe symbiosis

OUTREACH WORKING GROUP

The Outreach Working Group facilitates the promotion of our research to our educational partner and the wider community including schools, industry, government and the public at large. 

This includes: 

  • identifying outreach projects and strategies for implementation, for recommendation to the Executive Committee;
  • working with our Chief Investigators to develop and implement strategies that create opportunities for engaging and collaborating with partners and other stakeholder groups;
  • collaborating across the Centre’s Nodes to ensure our research is promoted, in a timely and appropriate manner, to industry and commercial partners, and to the wider community. 

View Outreach Working Group Terms of Reference.

RESEARCHER DEVELOPMENT WORKING GROUP

The Researcher Development Working Group leads our strategic initiatives to enhance the leadership skills and resilience of our researchers, including early-career researchers and higher degree research students. 

This includes collaborating across the Centre’s Nodes to identify researchers’ training and development needs, and sourcing/developing appropriate training and development activities, programs, and other resources to facilitate the development of our researchers. View Researcher Development Working Group Terms of Reference.

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