The last 23 years, I have acquired education and experience working with plants, animals, and microbes. I have acquired extensive training in molecular biology, microbiology, plant-microbe interactions, plant pathology, plant genetics, microbial genetics, biochemistry, and plant breeding.Most recently, I was working as a Plant Scientist at Agrinos, a company that produced plant bio-stimulant products. My role was to manage the Plant Biology group, which developed, executed, and interpreted plant efficacy testing of our bio-stimulant products. Therefore, I develop project protocols and manage all R&D growth-room, greenhouse, and multi-state R&D field trials. This included setting up and managing contracts with CROs. Additionally, I manage cross-functional projects with the Production, Commercial and/or Regulatory departments. All this work was done with a diverse number of crops: Corn, Soybean, Process Tomato, Almond, Cucumber, Rice, Strawberry, Sunflower, Cabbage, and Lettuce. Additional experience in the seed industry occurred, when I received training on plant breeding techniques while I was working as alfalfa breeding intern at Dairyland Seed Co.. Here, I collected, organized, and maintained a database with the field data from the alfalfa breeding and forage plots. Then I analyzed this data to create a map for the planting of next year's forage plots and selecting plants for winter crossings.As for my academic experience, I have worked on plant-microbe interactions in tomato and Arabidopsis at labs in the Dept. of Plant Pathology at Kansas State University, Dept. of Plant Biology and Forest Genetics at Swedish Agriculture University in Uppsala, Sweden, National Institute of Biological Sciences in Beijing, China, Dept. of Plant Physiology at Stockholm University in Stockholm, Sweden and Dept. of Plant Pathology at University of California, Davis.My PhD project at Stockholm University was focused on the characterization of a tomato disease-related protein. I showed that the protein has a role in plant basal immunity and discovered four interacting partners. Finally, I was able to determine, which of the protein’s amino acids were important for kinase activity and how that affected its interaction with other proteins. I have not completed my PhD because my supervisor was unavailable to help complete publication require for graduation however, I did complete a Licentiate exam which would equated to USA preliminary exam..