Members

Maria completed her PhD at the Chair for Plant Breeding at the University of Bonn, where she performed Advanced Backcross QTL analyses in barley crosses involving exotic germplasm. She then moved as a Postdoc to the Chair of Genetics at the University of Potsdam and looked into genome wide association mapping in Arabidopsis using tiling arrays and metabolite data. Subsequently, she worked as postdoctoral fellow at the International Center for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas, Syria. There she was primarily involved in QTL mapping for adaptation to Mediterranean environments in barley and the analysis of cis-acting variation in barley hybrids subjected to drought stress. In 2008 she started her own research group at the MPIZ with a focus on mechanisms of drought adaptation and the regulation of flowering time in barley. Since 2013 she is Junior Professor at the Heinrich Heine University, Düsseldorf and Independent Group Leader at the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research in Cologne. Since 9/2016 she is full professor for plant Genetics at the Heinrich-Heine-University.

Xiaojing comes from China and is interested in exploring the natural genetic basis of tillering in barley

Einar comes from Iceland and is interested in the genetic regulation of reproductive development in barley under drought.

Gesa comes from Germany and is interested in the genetic regulation of reproductive development in barley under high ambient temperature.

Artem comes from Russia and is interested in discovering the diversity of flowering time genes in barley using high-throughput sequencing approaches and association mapping

Meike comes from Germany and is interested in the effect of high ambient temperature on reproductive development in barley.

Agatha comes from Germany and investigates natural variation in tillering genes in annual cultivated and wild barley and perennial wild barley species

Jinshun is from China and his research interests are centered on the evolution of cold adaptations, flowering time regulation, and inflorescence diversity in barley, wheat and their wild relatives.