Team

Amol Nankar

Dr. Amol Nankar’s vegetable breeding program focuses on breeding vegetable crops for stress adaptation (biotic and abiotic), fruit quality, and horticultural traits that are relevant for Georgia and the southeast US.

Dr. Nankar’s areas of breeding interests include pre-breeding, trait introgression, marker-assisted selection, high-throughput phenotyping, and application of integrated omics, cultivar development and release.

Besides research, his extension role is aimed at working with different stakeholders across the vegetable value chain and serving the associated industry by disseminating vegetable breeding and other educational information that could assist the relevant stakeholders.

Dr. Nankar’s UGA Horticulture Profile

Connect with Dr. Nankar: Email

Dr. Deepa Jaganathan

Dr. Jaganathan has significant molecular breeding experience and her areas of expertise include genomics, molecular breeding, quantitative genetics, and genetic engineering. Deepa’s research interests comprise of QTL mapping, NGS analysis, CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing, and gene cloning. Here in Vegetable Breeding program at UGA, Deepa’s research focuses on marker-assisted selection (MAS), genomic selection, and genome editing for disease resistance and fruit quality in sweet pepper and other vegetables.

Connect with Dr. Jaganathan: Email

Mohit Jain

Mohit is a Ph.D. student with a strong background in Plant Breeding and Genetics. He earned his Master’s degree with hands-on experience in field experimentation and molecular biology techniques. Following his post-graduate studies, he worked as a Project Associate, where he gained practical expertise in evaluating landraces under controlled environmental conditions, along with speed breeding and shuttle breeding techniques.

As part of the Vegetable Breeding Lab, Mohit’s Ph.D. research is focused on evaluating UGA-Capsi-Core collection for bacterial spot and other diseases and subsequently to identify QTLs/genes associated with disease resistance, and developing a robust pepper breeding pipeline to support the breeding for host resistance component.

Emily Betenivalu

Emily is a Fulbright Scholar and joined UGA Vegetable Breeding program for her MS studies. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Agriculture from Fiji National University’s College of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry.

Emily has developed a keen interest in plant breeding since completing her degree, recognizing the critical need for Plant Breeders in the Pacific region. She is passionate about sustainable agriculture and committed to contributing to food security in Fiji and the wider Pacific, especially as we face the emerging challenges associated with vegetable production. 

Noel Thomas

Jessica Gibbs

Jessica is a recent graduate from ABAC with a Bachelor of Science in Biology. She is interested in plant breeding and genetics and all the lab work associated with it!

Connect with Jessica: Email

William Railey