People

A/Prof Mohammad Pourkheirandish

Mohammad, as a cereal geneticist, focuses on studying the molecular mechanisms underlying agronomic traits in crops. He is particularly interested in exploring the genetics of natural variation, crop evolution, divergence, and adaptation. His research contributes to understanding cereal inflorescence development, prevention of grain loss in the field, mechanisms of nutrition absorption and translocation, as well as factors involved in drought and salt tolerance. Mohammad’s group is using crop wild relatives as a resource for crop improvement and designing a process of new crop domestication.

Dr Tim Rabanus-Wallace

Tim is an evolutionary biologist with a strong bioinformatics bent. His work has spanned genomics and genome assembly, evolution, ancient DNA, palaeoisotope analysis, a sizeable scoop of microscopy, and even the occasional bit of field work including chipping fossils out of arctic permafrost and tying thousands of plants to sticks. As the resident data analyst, he works across a range of projects at CMG, but has a special passion for the genomic consequences of cereal domestication, and the intragenomic ecology of self-replicating elements. When not pondering algorithms, he plays in a pop band, reads old books, hikes around the bush, gets into pointless political arguments, and is unaccountably obsessed with formula 1 racing.

John Smith

Rudi Appels

Rudi Appels is an Honorary Professor and was awarded the Farrer Medal in 2022 for his Australia-wide/global leadership in determining the structure/function details of the wheat genome.

Luis Escobar

Luis is deeply passionate about the interdisciplinary nature of plant breeding and the inherent challenges it presents. His research focuses on barley genetic improvement by integrating molecular breeding techniques with high-throughput phenotyping platforms to identify drought-tolerant pre-breeding material. In his spare time he plays the guitar, engages in physical exercise and loves watching movies.

Claire Huang

Claire is passionate about barley nitrogen use efficiency, studying root and above-ground performance under varying nitrogen conditions. Her research delves into molecular mechanisms of nitrogen metabolism by examining phenotypic and genetic variations in barley populations. Outside research, she enjoys petting her cats and going for drink tastings, especially some fermented barley juice!

Wenting Kang

Wenting is studying plant non-specific lipid transfer proteins (LTPs) and their roles in wheat spike development. Her research focuses on wheat spike morphology and fertility to investigate the molecular mechanisms of LTPs and whether LTPs shape wheat spikes. She is interested in protein structure and the diverse function of wheat LTPs. She loves handcrafting and playing Switch in her spare time.

Mahnaz Mandeh

With a background in agricultural biotechnology and plant breeding now she has started to know more about cell walls! She uses different electron microscopy, histology, cellular and molecular techniques to find out which processes happen in cereals to help a grain leaves its mother plant. She enjoys baking and listening to music.

Nirmal Rajendran

Nirmal is working on a forward genetic approach to unravel the mechanism behind barley head loss, which is a major problem in southern regions of Australia. A phenotype to genotype model is being developed to select elite cultivars benefiting Australian Farmers.

Lucas Reber

Lucas investigates genes involved in barley grain dispersal. He uses a variety of molecular biology, microscopy, and bioinformatics techniques. Ultimately, his project aims to understand the interactions of the gene network that controls grain dispersal. Besides that, he is also known for baking amazing bread.

Kelly Rodgers

Kelly utilizes molecular and bioinformatic techniques to investigate the origins of grain dispersal in barley. She is particularly focussing on the evolutionary history and roles of genes which are ancestral to key domestication genes. In her spare time she plays bass guitar and her Nintendo Switch.

Abhijith Madhusudan Srinivasan

With a generic bachelor’s degree in biology, Abhijith explored his interests in bioinformatics through an honours project wherein he studied the human genome to analyse the role of structural variation in neuro-developmental disorders. Now he is interested in pursuing bioinformatics full time and finds joy in learning new algorithms, number crunching and playing with various datasets. Outside of science he loves to play cricket and enjoy a beer with friends.

Wenjing Xu

Wenjing is working on the fungal and viral diseases of wheat and barley. Now her research mainly focuses on the genetic resistance of barley to the barley leaf rust fungal-Puccinia hordei. She is interested in the interaction between genetic resistance and their correlative fugal/viral factors. She enjoys reading and jogging in her spare time.

Arthur Cross

Asha Gould

Marcus Williams

John Baijun Li