Edgar Correa Email & Phone Number

Howdy! I am Edgar, a plant scientist interested in the fields of plant breeding, phenotyping, statistics, large data, and phytopathology.A bit about myself, I attended Virginia Tech for undergraduate studies, where I started off as a Biology major. I felt that it was too broad, so I decided to look into other science majors. While searching, I came across the Crop and Soil Environmental Sciences department, where they offered a major in Crop and Soil Sciences. Within the major there were different areas of focus. Crop Genetics & Breeding was one of the concentration and was what convinced me of switching majors. I looked into the type of careers within the field and believed it encompassed a perfect mixture of my interests; science, plants, genetics, and creativity! I wanted to dive deeper into the plant breeding field, so I contacted Dr. Bo Zhang, lead soybean breeder at Virginia Tech. She gave me a small project, to evaluate different soybean varieties for sprouting characteristics. After a month of helping, I was hired as an undergraduate research assistant. During my three years, I was heavily involved in the program. I helped with field notes, harvesting, collecting phenotypic data, planting, crossing, and lab work. I say that this is where I developed my basic foundation of plant breeding and will always be grateful for what I learned.I was highly intrigued with the field that I decided to continue the path towards becoming a plant breeder. I pursued a M.S. in Horticultural Sciences at Texas A&M University with Dr. Subas Malla, vegetable breeder at Uvalde’s AgriLife Research Center. My research was focused on watermelon breeding, I evaluated different varieties to identify ones suitable to Texas. I also worked on screening for race 2 anthracnose resistance within watermelon. I had the opportunity to build on my foundation by learning to statistically evaluate data, manage plants, and understand plant pathology.

Listed skills include Microsoft Products, High Performance Liquid Chromatography, Dna Extraction, Nir Spectroscopy, and 29 others.