CV

Short CV

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Extended CV

Personal Information

• From 89 (good year to be born)
• Male, Brazilian (also has Italian Citizenship)
• I like playing sports and running
• Lived in many countries (Brazil –> USA –> UK –> Belgium –> Germany)
• Enjoy going to Heavy Metal concerts

Education

• 2018-2021 - Rothamsted Research, Harpenden, United Kingdom
  • Post-Doctoral Research Scientist ● Statistical Genomics
• 2014-2017 - Luiz de Queiroz College of Agriculture / University of São Paulo (ESALQ-USP), Piracicaba, Brazil
  • Doctor’s (Ph.D.) Degree ● Genetics and Plant Breeding ● Allogamous Plant Breeding Laboratory
  • Thesis title: Influence of multi-trait modeling, dominance, and population structure in genomic prediction of maize hybrids
• 2012-2013 - Federal University of Lavras (UFLA), Brazil
  • Master’s (M.S) Degree ● Genetics and Plant Breeding
  • Dissertation title: Association of tuber initiation and duration of the vegetative cycle with heat tolerance in potato
• 2008-2011 - State University of Southwestern Bahia (UESB), Jequie, Brazil
  • Bachelor’s (B.S) Degree ● Plant Sciences (with emphasis on Genetics)
  • Bachelor title: Genetic studies in Jatropha ribifolia: germplasm conservation and improvement of populations in Bahia State, Brazil

Research/Professional experience

• Sep/2023-Present ● Advanced Scientist ● OSR Crop Lead ● Breeding & Technologies Application (BTA)
  • Key responsibilities: Lead biometrics support for EMEA winter OSR breeding programs, including multi-environment trial analysis, deployment of genomic selection and hybrid prediction methodologies, and optimization of parental crosses. Partner closely with molecular breeding and pre-breeding teams to support disease trait analytics and Product Design initiatives.
• May/2021-Aug 2023 ● Biometrics Scientist ● Wheat Crop Lead ● Biometrics and Breeding Research
  • Key responsibilities: Biometrics support for winter wheat EMEA breeding programs. Implementation and support of experimental designs, multi-environment trial analysis, envirotyping, deployment of predictive methodologies such as genomic selection, optimization of crossing blocks, and heterotic pool formation.
• 2018-April/2021 ● Post-Doctoral Research ● Wheat Genomics
  • Manager: Gancho Slavov
  • Key responsibilities: statistical and quantitative genomics data analysis
  • Research projects: see ‘Hot Topics Research’. Designing Future Wheat programme. Main goal: accelerating the discovery and deployment of genes and alleles of high value for breeding.
  • Research expertise: genomic prediction strategies using image data, gene-based (SKAT, SKAT-O) scans in biosynthetic pathways, multi-omics modeling in willow
  • Notable achievements: leading the statistical genetics and quantitative genetics group; developed a genomic prediction strategy using time series data from a phenotyping platform; developing a quantitative genetics pipeline for the wheat TILLING panel; developing new models/strategies using multi-omics data in willow.
• 2017 ● Training Research, Collaboration ● CIMMYT, Texcoco, Mexico
  • Manager: Jose Crossa
  • Key responsibilities: Technical visits to field trials. Molecular data analyzes using genotype × environment interaction models
  • Research project: Genomic selection for nitrogen and drought stress in maize and wheat
• 2015-2016 ● Training Research, Collaboration ● Iowa State University, Ames, United States
  • Manager: Jianming Yu
  • Key responsibilities: Evaluation of sorghum and maize field trials. Analyses of population genomics (fineSTRUCTURE, ADMIXTURE, MG-GBLUP, rrBLUP, linkage disequilibrium)
  • Research project: Genomic selection for structured population in maize
• 2014-2017 ● Ph.D. Research ● Maize Breeding and Genomics
  • Manager: Roberto Fritsche-Neto
  • Key responsibilities: evaluation of breeding trials (i.e. double haploids, hybrids, and inbred lines), selection methods for nitrogen use efficiency (NUE), application of genomic selection and genome wide association studies (GWAS) for NUE phenotypes
  • Research project: Accuracy of nonadditive genomic selection models to predict tropical maize single-crosses
• M.S. Research ● Potato Breeding
  • Manager: César Augusto Brasil Pereira Pinto
  • Key responsibilities: field testing (i.e. multi-environment trials), recurrent selection and methods for heat tolerance, germplasm characterization, and disease resistance breeding.
  • Research project: Heat tolerance in potato: physiological characterization of clones
• Undergraduate Research ● Aromatic & Medicinal Breeding
  • Manager: Cláudio Lúcio Fernandes Amaral
  • Key responsibilities: evaluation of breeding systems, pollen analysis, and germplasm collection and characterization
  • Research projects: (i) on-farm conservation, participatory plant breeding, and ethnobotanical studies in the Brazilian semi-arid (Caatinga) region, and (ii) aromatic and medicinal breeding (focus on Ocimum L. and Jatropha L. - physic nut)

Most relevant training courses attended

• 25th Summer Institute in Statistical Genetics (SISG) - Module 10: Pathway & Network Analysis for Omics Data. In: University of Washington (online) / 2020
• 6th Annual Summer Institute in Statistics for Big Data (SISBID) - Module 2: Supervised Methods for Statistical Machine Learning. In: University of Washington (online) / 2020
• Bioinformatics for Plant Biology. In: European Bioinformatics Institute, EMBL (Cambridge, UK) / 32h / 2018
• Tools for Analysis of GWAS in Crops. In: Instituto Nacional de Investigación Agropecuaria, INIA, Uruguay / 80h / 2017
• Modeling G × E interaction in Genomic Prediction Analysis. Tutor: Jose Crossa (CIMMYT). In: University of Sao Paulo, Brazil / 8h / 2017
• AGRON 621 - Advanced Plant Breeding (Class). In: Iowa State University (ISU, USA). Tutor: Dr. Jianming Yu / 64h / 2016
• Population and Quantitative Genetics for Breeding (Class). In: Iowa State University (ISU, USA). Tutor: Dr. Jack C M Dekkers / 64h / 2015.2
• Analysis of Experiments using ASReml-R. Tutor: Salvador Gezan (University of Florida). In: University of Sao Paulo, Brazil / 16h / 2015.1
• Bayes Biostatistics. Tutor: Emmanuel Lesaffre (University Hasselt). In: University of Sao Paulo, Brazil / 45h / 2014

Main Ad Hoc Reviewer

• Agronomy (Topic Editor)
• Plos One
• Molecular Breeding
• Crop Science
• Euphytica

Programming & Analytics:

• R, Python, Shiny, Linux, ASReml-R, BGLR-R, GCTA, Galaxy, PowerBI, and Spotfire

Main recent conference attended with poster presentation

• 16th International Rapeseed Congress, Sydney, Australia. 2023
• XVIIIth Eucarpia Biometrics in Plant Breeding Conference, Paris, France. 2022
• Monogram-Cereals & Grasses Research Network, Leeds, UK. 2022
• 6th International Conference of Quantitative Genetics (ICQG6). 2020
• PAG XXVII - Plant & Animal Genome Conference, San Diego, CA, USA. 2019
• XXIVth EUCARPIA Maize and Sorghum Conference, Freising, Germany. 2019
• 7th Channel Network Conference, Harpenden, UK. 2019
• 100 years of quantitative genetics theory and its applications: celebrating the centenary of Fisher 1918, Edinburgh. 2018
• 9º Brazilian Plant Breeding Conference, Foz do Iguaçu, PR, Brazil. 2017
• 58th Annual Maize Genetics Conference, Jacksonville, Florida, USA. 2016
• 5th International Conference on Quantitative Genetics, Madison, Wisconsin, USA. 2016
• 70th Corn & Sorghum Seed Research Conference, Chicago, Illinois, USA. 2015
• Crop Science Society of America, Annual Meeting, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. 2015

Further relevant information

• Member of the Brazilian Society of Plant Breeding and the Genetics Society (UK)
• Best Research Award - 1st Place - Congress of Scientific Initiation, 2011
• Contributed as a collaborator to the approval of the BBSRC-FAPESP pump-priming grant (UK), 2018

Languages

• Portuguese: mother tongue
• English: Advanced. Score 86/120 in “Test of English as a Foreign Language” (ETS-TOEFL iBT). Score 7 in IELTS/Academic (International English Language Testing System).
• Spanish: Intermediate level
• Italian: Beginning level
• German: A2 level

Skills

• See Intro tab

Publications

• See Publications tab

Teaching experience

• See Teaching tab