Nourollah Ahmadi, Agropolis–CIRAD; PDC for Improving drought tolerance in rice for Africa (CI4)
Nour Ahmadi received his PhD in Genetics and Plant Breeding from the University of Paris XI-Orsay France. He then spent 15 years in Madagascar and Mali as a rice breeder for rain-fed ecosystems with emphasis on yield stability. In Madagascar, Nour developed photosensitive improved varieties combining flexibility of crop establishment date and safety of fixed flowing date within the rainy season. He also analysed the genetic diversity of Malagasy rice and detected traditional varieties originating from inter-subspecific recombination. In Mali, he coordinated the Conférence des responsables de la recherche agronomique africains et français (CORAF) rainfed rice breeding network for West Africa, and released the first lowland variety with partial resistance to Rice Yellow Mottle Virus (RYMV); he then developed NILs for QTLs involved in resistance to RYMV and confirmed their epistatic relationship. Currently, he is based in France, working within a group of ecophysiologists, geneticists and breeders involved in association analysis for abiotic stresses including variable soil water status and drought. Nour coordinates rice and sorghum breeding programmes in Africa and Latin America, involving Agropolis–CIRAD scientists. He also supervises PhD students for analysis of rice in situ diversity in Africa and Madagascar. Since 2002, Nour has been a member of the Editorial board for the well known academic journal Euphytica.

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Richard Trethowan, Plant Breeding Institute, University of Sydney, Australia; PDC for Improving drought tolerance in wheat for Asia(CI6)
Richard holds a PhD in Plant breeding and a BSc. in Agriculture from the University of Sydney, Australia, and currently works at the self-same institute as Professor of Plant Breeding and Director of the Watson Grains Research Centre.

He began his career as a Post-doctoral Fellow and Associate Scientist in CIMMYT’s Wheat Programme, after which he returned to his old study haunts in Sydney as a wheat breeder. He then became a Senior Wheat Breeder at Agriculture Victoria, Australia. Thereafter, and equipped with a wealth of breeding knowledge and experience from the CGIAR, a university and a national government department, Richard returned to CIMMYT as Principal Scientist and Head of Wheat Breeding for Rainfed Environments, a position he held for ten years, before moving to his current position in Sydney.

In his roles at CIMMYT, Richard worked closely with scientists in developing country research programmes to deliver superior, drought-tolerant wheat germplasm. His recent work with the University of Sydney have taken him to India with the express purpose of implementing molecular technologies in applied wheat breeding.

Richard has a specific research interest in the drought tolerance and water-use-efficiency of broad-acre crops and he has published extensively on this and related subjects. 

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Oumar Niangado, Syngenta Foundation; PDC for Improving drought tolerance in sorghum for Africa (CI5)
Oumar Niangado, of Malian nationality, holds a PhD in plant breeding from the Faculty of Orsay (l’Université Paris-Sud 11), France, as well as a BSc in Agronomy from l’Institut Polytechnique Rural de Katibougou, Mali. 

As Director General of l'Institut d’économie rurale (IER), Mali, the national agricultural research institute which has approximately 840 employees, 80 PhD students, 100 MSc students and six regional research centres, Oumar contributes to the development of networking activities with the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) and several US-based universities (including Texas A&M and The University of Nebraska) through the USAID-funded International Sorghum and Millet Collaborative Research Support Program (INTSORMIL), and participates in different External Panel Reviews for centres of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research  (CGIAR), including that of ICRISAT in 1990 and the Africa Rice Center (formerly known as WARDA) in 1999.

Oumar has worked closely with many scientists from the CGIAR, especially during his time as a member of the CGIAR Technical Advisory Committee from 2000 to 2004. He holds a specific interest in linking research to development, specifically in sub-Saharan Africa.

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Leon Kochian, USDA–ARS, USA; PDC for Comparative genomics to improve cereal yields in high-aluminium and low-phosphorous soils (CI7)
Leon holds a B.A. in Botany from the University of California–Berkeley (USA) and a Ph.D. in Plant Physiology from the University of California–Davis. Following his PhD studies he joined the USDA–ARS Center on the Cornell University campus (USA), where he now works as Director of the organisation’s Robert W. Holley Center for Agriculture and Health (also on the Cornell University campus), as well as working as a Professor in the Departments of Plant Biology and Crop and Soil Science at Cornell University.

Leon’s research deals with the molecular biology and physiology of crop mineral ion transport processes as they relate to mineral nutrient acquisition, crop responses to abiotic environmental stresses, and micronutrient density of food crops. A significant component of his research programme involves the elucidation of genes and physiological mechanisms underlying cereal crop acid soil tolerance, with a focus on tolerance to aluminum (Al) toxicity and the use of these genes to improve cereal production on acid soils. He has been the Principal Investigator (PI)/co-PI of three GCP competitive grants on sorghum and maize aluminium tolerance, and currently focuses on exploiting recent discoveries of the molecular basis for sorghum Al tolerance and rice phosphorous efficiency for improving the acid soil tolerance of rice, maize and sorghum through his current role as PDC for the Comparative Genomics Challenge Initiative.

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Jeff Ehlers, University of California–Riverside, USA; PDC for Improving drought tolerance in cowpeas for Africa (CI3)
Jeffrey Ehlers holds a PhD in Genetics from the University of California–Davis, USA, specialising in plant breeding and genetics. Besides a short stint in the private sector as a triticale and wild rice breeder, Jeffrey has worked on cowpea breeding in the public sector for more than 25 years, initially with the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (1985–1988), and then with the University of California–Riverside (UoC–Riverside) from 1992 to date. At UoC–Riverside, he has been a key collaborator on the USAID-funded Bean/Cowpea and Dry Pulse Collaborative Research Support Programs (CRSPs) in research partnerships with the national cowpea breeding programmes in Senegal, Burkina Faso, Ghana, and – more recently – Angola. Since 2007, he has led the cowpea component of the GCP Tropical Legumes I project with partnerships in Mozambique, Senegal, Cameroon and Burkina Faso. This project quickly developed a modern breeding capability for cowpea, with resources that include a highly dense consensus genetic map – published in the prestigious journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) – and the development of a 1536 SNP marker genotyping platform for cowpea. He has co-authored several key review papers, such as ‘Cowpea Breeding’ in Plant Breeding Reviews (1997) and several recent book chapters on cowpea breeding and genetics research.

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Pooran Gaur, ICRISAT; PDC for Improving drought tolerance in chickpeas for Africa and Asia (CI2)
Pooran M Gaur is a plant breeder by training and currently a Principal Scientist (Chickpea Breeding) at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) in Patancheru, Hyderabad, India.

He has a PhD in Crop Science from the University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada,  a Master’s degree in Agriculture with specialisation in Plant Breeding and Genetics and a Bachelor’s degree in Agriculture, both from Jawaharlal Nehru Agricultural University, Jabalpur, India.

Prior to joining ICRISAT in 2001, he worked for over 20 years at Jawaharlal Nehru Agricultural University in various capacities from Assistant Professor to Professor. The vast majority of his considerable years of research experience has been spent on chickpea genetics and breeding. 

Pooran developed the first chickpea linkage map, which is widely cited. Presently, he is actively involved in marker-assisted breeding of chickpea for improving resistance and tolerance to abiotic and biotic stresses. He has been associated with GCP since its inception as both a Principal Investigator (PI) and Co-PI of various projects on chickpea. He is involved as an Activity Leader in both Tropical Legumes I and Tropical Legumes II projects.

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Emmanuel Okogbenin, National Root Crops Research Institute, Nigeria; PDC for Improving cassava yield in Africa's drought-prone environments (CI1) 
Emmanuel Okogbenin holds a PhD in Plant breeding and Molecular Genetics. He has broad practical experience in cassava improvement research. His research goals are driven by the need to expand food production, and to alleviate poverty through enhanced income for farmers through modern breeding techniques. In his expansive career in cassava research, he has worked at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, the International Center for Tropical Agriculture and the National Root Crops Research Institute (NRCRI) in Nigeria. His research background cuts across different fields, covering plant breeding; genomics and markers; marker-assisted selection (MAS); germplasm development and genetic diversity; agronomy; and stress physiology. Through GCP-funded activities, he has efficiently used MAS for cassava mosaic disease resistance in deploying novel germplasm from the Neotropics to Africa, and is currently developing marker-assisted recurrent selection-bred varieties for improved productivity in drought ecologies. Emmanuel is involved in collaborative research partnership activities complementary to the GCP mission. He is the project manager for several cassava research projects funded by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa and NRCRI. He currently heads of NRCRI’s Molecular Breeding Unit of and coordinates a network of cassava breeders in four countries in Africa. He has key publications on QTL mapping and MAS studies in peer-reviewed international journals.

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