Jim Holland is a Research Geneticist for the USDA and Associate Professor, NC State University.  Born in Massachusetts and resident of many other places, he graduated in 1989 from Johns Hopkins U. with a BA in Biology.  He received an MS from Univ. of Wisconsin and a PhD from NCSU, then worked as an Assistant Prof. in oat breeding and genetcs at Iowa State U.  In 1999, he moved to his current job as maize phenomicist in Raleigh, NC.  Besides corn, he mainly likes music (Messiaen to Monk to Minutemen and more), literature (Dante, Borges, Dostoevsky, Shakespeare, O’Connor, Tolstoy et al.), and food.

Jim Holland

Josie Bloom is a Biological Science Technician for USDA/ARS.  She manages the DNA marker/genotyping laboratory for the maize breeding and genetics group and is researching gametophyte factors in maize. Josie is originally from Havelock, NC.  She has B.S. and M.S. degrees in Molecular Biology/Biotechnology from East Carolina University. She is an accomplished graphic artist, but had nothing to do with this web page layout so don’t blame her for that!

Josie Bloom

Team Corn ARS-NCSU

Dramatis Personae:

The Comically Inept and Distracted Boss — Jim Holland

The Minister of Laboratory Management — Josie Bloom

The Minister of Agricultural Field Experimentation — Jason Brewer

The Graduate Students Hoping This Does Not Ruin Their Careers—

                 Kristen Kump

                 Hsiaoyi Hung

                 Charlie Zila

The Cheerfully Laboring Undergraduate and Peasant Help:

                 Teagen Gray

                 Bradsher Wilkins

                 Keith Hamby

                 Tommy Bloom

                 David Horne

And we shall not soon forget the members of the Hall of Fame

Jason is a USDA Biological Science Technician who makes the field program happen. He grew up on a farm somewhere in the hinterlands of Wisconsin and received his B.S. in Agronomy from U. of Wisconsin-River Falls. He received an M.S. in corn physiology from Purdue U.  He did not quit after watching his boss jump start a corn combine with a Toyota Camry on the first week of the job. That is fortitude!

Jason Brewer

Kristen grew up in New York and Illinois and graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she was introduced to plant breeding in Jack Staub’s lab. She worked with Peter Balint-Kurti and Jim on a project to fine-map QTL for Southern Leaf Blight Resistance and for her M.S. and is continuing this project for her Ph.D. She is the O.S. Smith Pioneer Fellow in Plant Breeding.

Kristen Kump

Hsiaoyi is from Taiwan and received an M.S. in plant breeding from Texas A&M. He traded in hot Texan wheat fields for hot Carolina corn fields.  He is working on complex trait analysis with the Nested Association Mapping population and on fumonisin contamination resistance. He cooks really good food that we cannot easily pronounce and can spike a volleyball like nobody’s business.

Hsiaoyi Hung

Charlie is from Indiana and received his B.S. in Plant Genetics and Plant Breeding from Purdue U.  He spent a year as an intern plant breeder for Monsanto Co. and learned a lot about plant breeding and safety. He is working on breeding for improved resistance to Fusarium ear rot and fumonisin contamination and fine-mapping a photoperiod response gene. He is our closest link to the youth culture of America, God bless ‘im.

Charlie Zila

USDA-ARS Maize Breeding and Genetics at NCSU Presents:

Shilpa is from Punjab, India; she received her B.S. from Punjab Agricultural University and her Ph.D. in wheat genetics in Bikram Gill’s lab at Kansas State University. She is working on fine-mapping a flowering time QTL in maize.

Shilpa Sood

Yoon-Sup So

Yoon-Sup is from South Korea, where he received his B.S. degree and worked in maize breeding. He received his M.S. degree in Plant Breeding working with Jim Brewbaker in maize breeding at Univ. of Hawaii and his Ph.D. in statistical genetics with Jode Edwards at Iowa State University. He is working on mapping methods to define QTL interactions with environments.

Dalila is the yam breeder for INRA in Guadeloupe, France. She received her Ph.D. in plant genetics from the University of Rennes in France. She is visiting NCSU for one year, working on QTL and genome mapping methods. She is wondering how the maize genome sequence is going to help her breed better yams!

Dalila Petro

Teagen graduated from NCSU with a B.S. in Zoology in December, 2007 and joined Team Corn while she looks for her dream job, which will apparently involve the ocean, boats, and lots of fish guts.  Not corn. Oh, well, you can’t win them all. She is a great worker, so all you fish gut job bosses out there, you should hire her!

Teagen Gray

Bradsher Wilkins is a native North Carolinean, working on his B.S. in Crop Science. He is a U.S. Army veteran and continues to proudly serve his nation through corn pollination, seed counting, and harvesting. After completing his degree, he plans to farm.

Bradsher Wilkins