Talks will begin on Wednesday July 23 at 4:00pm.  You may prefer to arrive earlier and join the tour of UW-Madison’s Wisconsin Crop Innovation Center, starting at 12:30 on Wednesday.  WCIC is the largest public plant transformation facility in the United States and continues to build new technologies onto the pioneering legacy of its former existence as the Agracetus/Monsanto plant transformation facility. See: https://cropinnovation.cals.wisc.edu/about-us/history/

The full conference will continue until 9:00pm on Friday July 25, with Sat. July 26 morning reserved only for special sessions as needed.

The 2025 meeting will include a greater emphasis on poster presentations and presenters, including an extended Wednesday evening (first-day) poster session with food and beverages, so that attendees can get to know each other right at the beginning of the conference.  A call for Abstract submissions for poster presentations (and consideration for speaking slots) will go out in January.

Speakers

Conference speakers will include nine speakers (any career level) chosen from submitted poster abstracts, and eight 5-minute “lightning talk” early-career speakers also chosen from poster abstracts. Program committee is presently filling out the roster of invited speakers. Talks will begin Wednesday mid-afternoon and continue through Friday evening.

Confirmed Speakers Include:

  • Tom Clemente – University of Nebraska
  • Marc Libault – University of Missouri
  • Melissa Mitchum – University of Georgia
  • Jianxin Ma – Purdue University
  • Bob Schmitz – University of Georgia
  • Wolfgang Busch – Salk Institute
  • Kristin Bilyeu – University of Missouri
  • Lisa Ainsworth – University of Illinois
  • Gary Stacey – University of Missouri
  • Bob Stupar – University of Minnesota
  • Henry Nguyen – University of Missouri
  • Jamie O’Rourke – USDA/ARS and Iowa State University
  • Keith Slotkin – Danforth Center and University of Missouri
  • Leah McHale – Ohio State University
  • Ron Mittler – University of Missouri
  • Xuelu Wang – Henan University
  • Marlies Wouters – Inari
  • Qingxin Song – Nanjing Agricultural University
  • Steve Whitham – Iowa State University
  • Khalid Meksem – Southern Illinois University
  • Kyung Do Kim – Sejong University
  • Ray Collier – Wisconsin Crop Innovation Center (UW-Madison)
  • Young Cho – University of Hawaii
  • Nathan Hancock – University of South Carolina Aiken