People
The CSU Wheat Breeding and Genetics Program is staffed by an extremely capable and dedicated team of researchers. Overall, our team has over 100 years of combined experience in wheat breeding spanning the spectrum from applied plant breeding, field trial management, seed production, genetics, experimental design and statistics, field phenotyping, end-use quality analysis, DNA marker analysis, wheat genomics, and bioinformatics. Our team is highly collaborative and dedicated to the improvement of wheat varieties and germplasm for the producers and industry that support our work. Information on our team members may be found below.
Esten Mason, Ph.D.
Professor of Plant Breeding and Genetics
Wheat Breeder and Project Leader
esten.mason@colostate.edu
John Stromberger
Senior Research Associate
Wheat Quality Laboratory Manager and
Field Trial Management
john.stromberger@colostate.edu
Scott Seifert
Research Associate IV Greenhouse Manager
scott.seifert@colostate.edu
Emily Hudson-Arns
Senior Research Associate
Genotyping Lab Manager and Field
Trial Management
emily.hudson@colostate.edu
Meenakshi Santra, Ph.D.
Senior Research Associate
Doubled Haploid Lab Manager
meenakshi.santra@colostate.edu
Hong Wang
Research Associate III
Doubled Haploid Lab Support
hongw224@gmail.com
Mik Hammers
Ph.D. Candidate
Dissertation Research – “Characterizing Resistance to Wheat Stem Sawfl y in Winter Wheat”
mik.hammers@colostate.edu
Collin Marshall
Research Associate II/PhD Student UAV Specialist
Dissertation Research – “Phenomic Selection Insights from Unmanned Air Vehicles Employed in Colorado State University Wheat Cultivar Development Pipeline”
Collin.Marshall@colostate.edu
Emily Billow
M.S. Graduate Student
Thesis Research – “Advancing Wheat Resistance to Fusarium Head Blight” Through Genomic Prediction Models
emily.billow@colostate.edu
Forrest Wold-McGimsey
Research Associate II Gene-Editing Project Manager
Forrest.Wold-Mcgimsey@colostate.edu
Former Students
Meseret Wondifraw
Ph.D. Graduate Student
Dissertation Research – Grain Protein and Water Absorption in Winter Wheat
meseret.wondifraw@colostate.edu
Brad Pakish
M.S. Graduate Student
Thesis Research – Wheat Stem Sawfly Resistance in Winter Wheat
bradley.pakish@gmail.com