in cooperation with

Past events of  
The Student Forum
 

2022

Bayer Mentorship Testimonials

4:00-5:00 PM

UC Davis is now included in Bayer’s University Mentorship Program.
On October 20, the first cohort of mentees and mentors will provide testimonials
about their experiences.
UC Davis graduate students are invited to attend the event, meet mentees and mentors,
and learn about opportunities to be part of this new program.

Interested UC Davis graduate students should contact François Korn, fkorn@seedcentral.org.

Visit of Bayer Field Day in Woodland, California

Interested UC Davis graduate students and post docs should contact François Korn, fkorn@seedcentral.org.

Online sessions at the American Seed Trade Association's Leadership Summit 2022

The NEW ASTA Leadership Summit will bring our key policy and educational program to Indianapolis, home to so many of our member companies, offering both in-person and virtual options for seed industry professionals.

American Seed Trade Association's Vegetable & Flower Conference

ASTA’s Vegetable and Flower Seed Conference offers unrivaled networking and educational opportunities for the global vegetable and flower seed industry. This event continues to be America’s fastest growing seed industry conference.

12 undergraduate and graduate students, and postdocs, were invited to attend the conference, sponsored by ASTA, Bayer, Sakata and Syngenta. All of them presented a research poster at the conference.
Many others attended sessions remotely.

Click HERE to read the article written by the students/postdocs about this trip.

2021

Online sessions at the
American Seed Trade Association's
CSS 2021 & Seed Expo

Don't miss the latest and newest session on the CSS & Seed Expo agenda - a whole new track of hybrid virtual sessions for seed industry professionals of all levels to hone their career skills. The tentative agenda includes:

• 9:30 - 10:30 am: Communicating Effectively
  • Navigating both sides of divisive topics
  • Using communication to escalate your career
  • Speaking publicly vs. privately
• 10:45 - 11:45 am: Managing through Crisis Situations
  • Finding employees/navigating labor shortages
  • Managing burnout; signs and remedies
• 1:00 - 2:00 pm: Consumer Outlook
  • Driven by demands
• 2:15 - 3:15 pm: Seed Science Challenge Reports
  • Hear from students participating in the Seed Science Foundations' United Nations project on how plant breeding will affect the future of our ability to feed the world!

Participating companies:

Bayer Vegetable Seeds Anna Jahnsen NA Product Supply Production Transformation Lead Hannah Neuenschwander Production Lead of Commercial Soybean Production Qianni Dong NAM Applied Pathology Testing and Disease Claim Verification Lead
Enza Zaden Katharina Wigg Onion Breeder Mahnaz Kargar Researcher; Post Harvest Oscar Crispin Assistant Researcher, Pathology
BASF Vegetable Seeds Carlos Galeano Senior Scientist Crop Genetics Markus Berns Senior Scientist Technology Development Suri Jiao Sr. Scientist Biostatistics

Seed Central event
Encounter with Patty Buskirk
Managing Partner, Seeds by Design and Terra Organics

Discover alternative ways to operate in the seed industry
and to serve the farmers, and find out how the industry offers rewarding careers for women.

Seeds by Design’s original concept in 1994 was based on the production, marketing, and brokering of high quality, open pollinated vegetable seed varieties to the home garden market. Shortly thereafter, we discovered the seed market was saturated with many seed companies selling the same products. The realization that seed buyers were hungry for new and unique products to grow their own market channels, helped create the innovation that continues to drive Seeds by Design to become and remain a market leader.

Seeds by Design’s collection of experimental niche markets, including heirloom, hybrid, open pollinated, and uniquely colored vegetables, are expanding faster than we can produce the seed. Currently, Seeds by Design’s product line consists largely of proprietary and specialty products that are only available for purchase from us. Seeds by Design’s knowledge and experience creates the foundation to produce high quality wholesale products and distribute both domestically and internationally with the diversity and service our customers demand.

Learn more at www.seedsbydesign.com

This event is part of Seed Central's series of events featuring women in our industry.
Previous events included:

• Her Startup - Encounters with women entrepreneurs who launched their own companies in ag & food, from seed to health (April 2021)
• The 'Job Panorama' in a seed company (April 2019)
• Seed & agbiotech professionals with atypical backgrounds (March 2018)
• Women in biotech (March 2017)
• The seed industry is a great place for women to work - and for men too (January 2016)

Participating companies:

Bayer Vegetable Seeds Yang Bian Predictive Breeding Lead of Veg R&D Laura Gallegos Applied Pathology Lead – U.S. West
others to be announced

Online company visit at

Click here to stream the event

You will discover East-West Seed, a company that introduced market-oriented plant breeding in Southeast Asia in 1982, with the mission to improve the income of smallholder farmers through high-quality vegetable seeds.

Founded in 1982 by Dutch seedsman and 2019 World Food Prize Laureate Simon Groot, East-West Seed is one of the world’s leading vegetable seed companies in Asia and expanding rapidly in Africa and Latin America. The privately-owned company has played an important role in the development and improvement of tropical vegetable varieties that are adapted to tropical markets and growing conditions. Its mission is to provide innovative products and services that help to improve the livelihood of vegetable farmers. In addition, East-West Seed trains vegetable farmers in order to help maximize their yield and income through better knowledge on vegetable production and farming skills.

In 2019 East-West Seed ranked #1 on the Access to Seeds Index for Global Seed Companies and #1 for South and Southeast Asia Index.

In 2020, it ranked #28 in Fortune’s Change the World list of companies that are doing well by doing good.

East-West Seed has its headquarters in Nonthaburi, Thailand. The company employs about 5,000 people and has 17 R&D stations in 7 countries. With exports to over 60 countries in tropical areas, East-West Seed serves nearly 20 million farmers around the world.

Since 2013 East-West Seed works every year with Seed Central to recruit students for 3-month internships at its research stations in Southeast Asia.

Participants:

• Darush Struss, Group Biotechnology Manager
• Yuenyad Teerawatsakul, Research and Development Manager
• Hatthaya Arunothayanan, Molecular Genetics Lab Manager and Head of Molecular Plant Pathology
• John Szeridan Sotelo, Group Cell Biology Manager
• Eliot Cline, Head of Bioinformatics\
• Namfon Chomkaeo, Head of Genomics Research
• Kamolrat Boonmawat, Head of Trait Genotyping
• Sukrakran Sriboon, Head of Genome Editing
• Sean Paul Nyikos, Master Roboticist
• Janya Laepong, Researcher (Cell Biology)
• Titnarong Heng, Researcher (Genomics Research)
• Sandeep Mangare, Crop Breeding Manager (Pepper and Eggplant)
• Youngin Kim, Associate Pre-breeder (Pepper)
• Worachet Thepkham, HR assistant

Policy & Leadership Development Conference
of the American Seed Trade Association

A great opportunity to learn about the U.S. seed industry
and its many internships and career opportunities.

With sessions of particular interest to students:

2:00 PM to 1:00 PM EDT
The Mentor/Mentee Relationship
Speakers:
- Claudia Germeshausen, HM.Clause
- Luke Knight, Corteva Agriscience
- Curtis Wiltse, Beck’s Superior Hybrids
- John Latham, Latham Hi-Tech Seeds
This session will provide an discussion on how to develop a mentor/ mentee relationship to find guidance as you navigate your career.

1:00 to 1:45 PM EDT
Diversity and Inclusion in the Seed Industry:
Creating Opportunity for Future Leaders
Speakers:
- Kellie Adesina, Bayer
- Karis Gutter, Corteva Agriscience
You will hear from ASTA member company representatives, USDA and the 1890s Universities organization, collaboratively discussing how to create opportunities for future leaders. Following the session, a round table discussion will be offered for further discussion.

2:00 – 2:45 PM EDT
Future of Work
So much has changed in the past 15 months with regard to the American workplace. How can leaders best manage their team, and how can employees best manage their career and the work-life balance in this "next normal"? This session will explore the future of work after COVID-19 and how you should prepare for your company's immediate future.

4:00 to 5:00 PM EDT
Women in Seed
Speakers:
- The Honorable Joni Ernst (R., IA), United States Senate
- Shannon Latham, member of the Iowa House of Representatives and VP at Latham Hi-Tech Seeds.
 

Click here to stream the event
 

We are global. We are local. We are HM.CLAUSE.
We specialize in the breeding, production, and sales of vegetable seeds. From the world market to the farmer’s market, we collaborate with our customers to deliver successful solutions for the agricultural challenges of today, and produce the highest quality seeds for the future. Our global team of experts and state-of-the-art research facilities enable us to work side-by-side with growers to provide the most regionally relevant and reliable vegetable seeds available.

HM.CLAUSE is a business unit of Limagrain, an international co-operative agricultural group, specializing in field seeds, vegetable seeds and cereal products. With a team of 2,800 professionals in over 30 countries, we are dedicated to the sustainable solutions for the land, successful products for our customers, and intensive research and innovations for the future.
 

Sukhpreet Sandhu IP & Innovation Center Leader	Keith Walker Research Station Manager	Juan Carlos Rodriguez Labor Project Manager	Jafer Salman Cell Biology Research Assistant	Sarah Smith Squash Breeder	Michelle Ma Pathology Support Lab Manager

Seed Central Career Development Workshop
Legal matters

Click here to stream the event

Learn about all things legal which you will encounter when you work in industry:

• the employment contract
• the non-disclosure agreement
• intellectual property in the seed and agbiotech industry
• how intellectual property and intellectual property protection impact the work of industry researchers
• in- and out-licensing of technology

Eloy Corona Executive Director Seed Innovation and Protection Alliance	Don Mendel Attorney with over 40 years of experience in the plant and seed industry	Alissa Eagle Assistant General Counsel Bayer Vegetable Seeds	Benito Juarez R&D Manager & Senior Plant Breeder Sakata Seed America

Click here to stream the event
 

Online company visit at
Bayer Vegetable Seeds

(link forthcoming)

Lisa McDaniel Head of Global Outreach & Engagement, Vegetables R&D	JD Rossouw Head of Vegetables Research & Development	Qianni Dong NAM Applied Pathology Testing & DCV Lead in Vegetable R&D	Chow-ming Lee Consumer & Sensory Science	Charles Hagen Pathology Technologies Team Lead, Intrapreneur and Science Fellow

General info session

Women in seed

Career development workshop
Job Panorama session
Seed company employees in a variety of jobs will speak about their career path, current jobs, and what it’s like to work in the seed industry.
Presented by HM.Clause
Click here to stream the event

Claudia Germeshausen Global Lead of Organizational Development	Leo Camelo Regional Sales Director, South East Region	Geeta Sanjeev Global Quality Control Director	Taylor Chaisson Product Manager for Corn	Chad Kramer AMPA Breeding Director

Career development workshop
Interviewing skills
Taught by a seed company's HR specialists and employees.
Presented by Bayer Vegetable Seeds
Click here to stream the event