Who is the new managing director?
Professor Dr. Tim Beissinger has held the chair of Plant Breeding Methodology, in the Department of Crop Science at Georg-August-Universität since December 2018. Professor Beissinger moved to Göttingen from Missouri, USA, where he was a research geneticist for the US Department of Agriculture and adjunct assistant professor at the University of Missouri. Before this, he completed postdoctoral research in maize evolution at the University of California, Davis. His PhD in Statistical and Quantitative Genetics is from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Professor Beissinger’s research centers on developing quantitative- and population-genetic methods for plant improvement and genomic discovery. His group investigates the relationships between crop traits and crop genetics, and uncovers how to use these relationships to more effectively and efficiently improve plant performance. A theme that permeates his work is that of leveraging insights gleaned from previous evolution to drive breeding decisions. His latest research includes the development of methodology to identify adaptive traits, to efficiently and affordably map important genes, and to quantify the role of gene-gene interactions in determining crop traits. Ongoing research includes several species, but maize is utilized as the primary research object.