Hamid Ashrafi, Postdoctoral Researcher, received his B.S. in agronomy and plant breeding from the University of Technology, Iran, and M.Sc. in plant breeding from Azad University, Tehran, Iran. Hamid received his Ph.D. in genetics from Pennsylvania State University in August 2007. He is interested in plant breeding and genetics, with special interests in molecular breeding through marker assisted selection, genetic mapping, QTL analysis, and application of statistical methods. He is responsible for microarray data analysis, high-throughput data analysis, marker development, bioinformatics, database management, and software development.
Theresa Hill, Senior Research Associate, received her B.S. in biology from the University of Minnesotea, Duluth, and her Ph.D. in biology with emphasis in plant molecular and developmental biology from Yale University. She did post doctorates in plant molecular genetics at UC Davis and USDA-ARS-WRRC. Theresa is responsible for large scale microarray experiments for massively parallel detection and mapping of DNA markers in pepper.
Hans van Leeuwen, Postdoctoral Researcher, received his B.S. in Horticulture from the Agricultural College Delft, The Netherlands. He received a M.Sc. degree in Plant Breeding and Crop Protection from Wageningen Agricultural University, The Netherlands and will receive a second M.Sc. in Bioinformatics from the University of Manchester, United Kingdom. Hans received his Ph.D. in Biology from the University of Barcelona, Spain. He is responsible for microarray data analysis, high-throughput data analysis, genetical genomics, marker development, bioinformatics, database management, and software development.
Jessica Lund, Junior Specialist, graduated from UC Davis in 2006 with a B.S. in Evolution, Ecology, and Biodiversity. Jessica is responsible for designing and analyzing genotyping data for cotton mapping using Illumina and evaluating Affymetrix GENECHIP for DNA marker discovery in cotton and will also undertake a gene flow study in the field.
Sharon Luong, Junior Specialist, graduated from UC Davis in 2006 with a B.S. in Biological Sciences, emphasis in evolution and ecology. Sharon is working on a hydroponics experiment evaluating genes identified in the model plant Arabidopsis for their potential to improve nitrogen use efficiency in tomato.
Kevin Stoffel, Senior Research Associate/M.Sc. Fall 2007, received a B.S. in Genetics from UC Davis in 2003. Kevin is responsible for developing lettuce hybridization protocols and target preparation. Kevin has completed numerous other projects including work in tomato and cotton SNP discovery.