Submitted by Administrator on Tue, 23/07/2019 - 15:52
Congratulations to Dr Giles Oldroyd, who has been elected as the new Russell R. Geiger Professor of Crop Science. He will take up the role on the 1st October 2019.
As well as advancing crop science research at the University, Giles will help to lead the Crop Science Centre, and will be based in the new Cambridge University Crop Science Building on the NIAB Cambridge campus.
Giles received his BA in Plant Biology in 1994 from the University of East Anglia and his PhD in 1998 from the University of California, Berkeley. He began work in symbiotic associations in plants as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University, before starting his independent research career in 2002 as a BBSRC David Philips Fellow at the John Innes Centre in Norwich. In November 2017 Giles joined the Sainsbury Laboratory as a group leader.
Research into broadening the plant host species that can accommodate nitrogen-fixing bacteria is at the heart of Giles' work. He currently leads an international project on engineering nitrogen-fixing cereals, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, with the long-term aim of delivering significant yield improvements to the poorest farmers in the world.