Plenary Speaker – Professor Yoselin Benitez-Alfonso
Yoselin Benitez-Alfonso, PhD, is a Professor of Plant Sciences and UKRI Future Leaders Fellow at the University of Leeds. She is originally from Cuba and studied in the University of La Habana. She completed a PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in the University of Cordoba, Spain and did postdoctoral placements at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (New York, USA) and at the John Innes Centre (JIC) (Norwich, UK). Yoselin’s research focuses on investigating the mechanisms regulating intercellular communication in plants using biological, physical and mathematical approaches.
Plenary Speaker – Tessa Burch-Smith
Tessa completed her undergraduate studies at the University of the West Indies, then graduate studies at Yale University and post-doctoral work at the University of California, Berkeley. She joined the University of Tennessee, Knoxville as an Assistant Professor in 2012 and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2019. In 2021 her lab moved to the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in St. Louis, Missouri where she is currently an Associate Member and Director of Research for Food Security. Tessa’s research focuses on intercellular communication in plants and plant-virus interactions. She is also actively engaged in the wider scientific community, serving in editorial roles and on Boards of Directors for various scientific societies. She is currently the President-Elect of the American Society of Plant Biologists (ASPB), serving the first of year of a three-year presidential term. Tessa Burch-Smith is passionate about broadening participation in science and providing an enriching, supportive environment/opportunities for persons not traditionally engaged in science and scientific careers.
Cultivate: Meet our Summer Studentship Cohort
Meet the students from the second year of our Summer Studentship Programme!
Join us to hear directly from these emerging talents about their experiences
and insights gained over the summer. Discover the impact of the
programme and celebrate the achievements of the next generation of plant
scientists.
Speaker: Phoebe Allen
Phoebe is a student of Global Sustainable development at the University of Warwick. Her longstanding passion for environmental justice and the fundamentals plant biology is what drove her to apply for this studentship. In future, she hopes to be a force for trans-disciplinary and sustainable solutions to food security issues, by harnessing crop improvement technology to modify staple foods like rice and maize. She has led and participated in a number of sustainability campaigns about agro-ecology and conservation which she found very enjoyable. Aside from academics, Pheobe loves to dance, cook and rollerskate!
Speaker: Nalo Magar
Nalo is currently an undergraduate Biology student at the University of York. Her curiosity for biology developed through exploring emerging technologies in bioengineering, particularly how cellular processes can be harnessed to develop new therapeutics. She is especially drawn to the potential of plant-based systems to contribute to human health, including how bioactive compounds from African medicinal plants could be used to improve treatment accessibility and address disparities in treatment outcomes for African women.
Nalo is particularly fascinated by cell signalling and developmental biology, and how these processes operate in plants. She finds it compelling how plants coordinate growth and respond to their environment through local signalling, offering a unique perspective on how cells communicate and function collectively.
Beyond academic work, Nalo is strongly committed to improving access to education and reducing inequalities in academia. Through her role with the University of York Black Access Programme, she has had the honour of guiding Black students through tailored mentoring and work to address barriers they may face when applying to university, particularly within predominantly white institutions.
Speaker: Tinotenda Matemera
Tinotenda is a second-year BSc Genetics student at the University of Essex.
Her interest in plant science is rooted in its critical role in food security, sustainability, and climate resilience. This has motivated her to explore how plant genetics, bioinformatics, and gene editing can be applied to enhance crop resilience and address agricultural challenges, particularly in African regions that are heavily impacted by climate change and food insecurity.
Tinotenda is especially drawn to plant genetics as it is an innovative and forward-looking field within plant science. It moves beyond the traditional study of plants to focus on understanding and improving how they function and adapt, using tools such as CRISPR, bioinformatics, and genomic analysis.
Outside of plant science, she engages in hobbies that allow her to be creative and decompress. Tinotenda enjoys baking, where she can experiment with different recipes and ingredients to create both simple and more complex treats. She also enjoys arts and crafts, which provide an outlet for creativity through hands-on projects and design. These activities help her maintain balance, unwind from academic study, and keep her mind engaged in a different, more creative way.
Celebrate: Meet our Research Excellence Awardees
Meet this year’s award winners of the Research Excellence Award!
Learn more about their contributions to the plant sciences from the beginning of their careers to date. Including their most recent experience at ICAR 2025.
Speaker: Ousamane Dao
Ousmane Dao is a plant scientist specialising in algal photosynthesis and its applications to sustainable agriculture and climate solutions. He is currently based in the Department of Biology at the University of York, where his research focuses on understanding key processes such as carbon concentrating mechanisms, photorespiration, and their crosstalk, with the aim of improving photosynthetic efficiency and developing sustainable bio-based production systems. His work has contributed to the discovery of novel components of algal photorespiration and to advancing our understanding of how photosynthetic systems can be optimised for enhanced carbon fixation and biofuel production. More broadly, his research sits at the intersection of fundamental biology and global challenges such as food security and climate change. Beyond the lab, Ousmane is a dedicated advocate for representation in STEM. He is committed to mentoring and supporting the next generation of scientists and to promoting diversity in plant science through teaching, supervision, and community engagement. He is the recipient of the Black in Plant Science Research Excellence Award, recognising his contributions to plant science and commitment to inclusive research communities.
Speaker: Sibongile Zimba
Dr Sibongile Zimba is a Research Fellow at the University of Bristol whose research aims to improve crop nutritional quality and resilience to climate stress. Growing up in Malawi prompted her passion for plant science to tackle global hunger and malnutrition. As a Lecturer and Senior Lecturer at Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources, in Malawi, she taught and mentored students, supervised research projects, and developed training resources that continue to support good agricultural practice.
Dr Zimba’s PhD (University of Leeds, 2024), funded by UKRI-GCRF-AFRICAP, explored drought-tolerance mechanisms, identifying traits linked to resilience. This work contributed to the development of elite drought-tolerant sorghum varieties. She presented her work internationally and published as both first and co-author in journals (Plants People Planet, Current Biology, Nature Food, Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, CABI) and book chapters.
Now a Bristol Futures Research Development Fellow (2025-29), Dr Zimba investigates how combined climate stresses-including heat, drought, and elevated CO₂-affect wheat roots-soil interaction and grain nutritional quality. Integrating plant biology with machine learning, she aims to accelerate the development of climate-resilient, nutrient-rich crops for a nutritionally secure future. In 2025 she received the Rank Prize (The Lord Selborne Early Career Researcher Presentation Prize) and multiple travel grants to international conferences, including New Phytologist Next-Generation Scientists, Rank Prize Symposium, Rosalind Franklin Women in Wheat champions among others.
Dr Zimba is committed to inclusiveness in science, mentoring the next generation of scientists. She is an active member of the Association of Applied Biologists, Women in Crop Science, Black in Plant Science among others. She contributes to initiatives that advance research culture, equity, and diversity, and engages in outreach to inspire marginalised communities.
Workshop: Working beyond academia, different routes
Academic careers are just one path among many. This workshop guides participants through the varied landscape of professional opportunities beyond the university setting. From industry to policy, entrepreneurship to NGOs, learn how to identify transferable skills, build relevant networks, and confidently pivot into fulfilling careers.
Chair: John Baison
John Baison, PhD, is a UKRI Future Leaders Fellow and cereal geneticist based at RAGT Seeds Ltd. focusing on the implementation of genomic selection methods in cereal breeding programmes, and liaison with breeders and statisticians to ensure delivery of molecular genetics and bioinformatics analyses. John completed his PhD on the application of genetic and genomic tools in Apple breeding at the ARC in South Africa. In June 2015, John was awarded a Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Karl Kemp Foundation to join the Bio4Energy project at Umea Plant Science Centre (UPSC), Sweden as a bioinformatician. This was followed by a Postdoctoral Fellowship from The Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research (SSF) in the Forest Genetics group at UPSC as lead bioinformatician.
Panellist: ThankGod Ebenezer
Dr. ThankGod Ebenezer is the Global Engagement Manager for EMBL-EBI Data Services at the EMBL-European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), UK, where his role focuses on exploring new approaches, data, metadata, functions, services, and potential uses of open data in low-resource settings. Prior to taking up this role, ThankGod was a Bioinformatician at QBio.AI, University of Cambridge School of Clinical Medicine, and EMBL-EBI. Dr Ebenezer undertook his postdoctoral research training at the Earlham Institute, UK, where he worked on Wheat transcriptomics and epigenomics. ThankGod studied for his PhD degree in Biochemistry at the University of Cambridge, UK, MSc in Environmental Toxicology and Pollution Management at the University of Lagos, Nigeria, and BSc in Parasitology and Entomology from Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Nigeria. In 2020 Dr Ebenezer founded the African BioGenome Project which sequences the genomes of African endemic and indigenous species, and has since 2022 trained over 1400 African scientists in genomics, bioinformatics, molecular biology and gene editing across 12 African countries.
Panellist: Imelda Uwase
Imelda is a plant-soil scientist, currently working in Defra as part of the research and development fellowship. Both their PhD and postdoc research examined how plants interactions with soil organisms drive important processes like the cycling of carbon and nutrients in soils. They have since stepped out of academia, to see if the grass is greener in the civil service. They work on a project on environmental land management schemes. This role, working at the science-policy interface, has given them the opportunity to broaden their experience, develop new skills, apply their scientific expertise and contribute to a project with real-life impact.
In this session, they will talk about what prompted them to experiment with work outwith academia, their experience of the civil service so far, and the preliminary results of this work-related experiment.
Workshop: Leading authentically at every career stage: as a Black scientist
Unlock your leadership potential in science! This interactive workshop will help ECRs thrive in collaborative and interdisciplinary environments by developing essential leadership skills. Through self-reflection, discussion, and practical exercises, participants will explore their unique leadership styles, learn how to adapt their approach to different contexts, and create a personal leadership action plan. Leave with greater confidence, clear development goals, and practical strategies to strengthen your impact within research teams and the wider plant science community.
Chair: Crispus Mbaluto
Crispus is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Research Fellow at the Estación Experimental del Zaidín-CSIC, Spain. He investigates the molecular and ecological mechanisms underlying plant immunity, with particular focus on plant-mediated interactions between root organisms, including microbiome and plant-parasitic nematodes, and shoot insect herbivores. By linking the molecular mechanisms that occur inside the plants to broader ecological outcomes, his research advances our understanding of plant defence strategies and contributes to the development of sustainable crop protection practices. He holds PhD in ecology, and has extensive postdoctoral research experience in plant-microbe-herbivore interactions. Most recently, has expanded his interest to a complementary research direction exploring cereal grafting as innovative tool to enhance abiotic stress resilience in cereal cropping system. Beyond research, Crispus is passionate about science communication, knowledge exchange, and community engagement. He serves as an Assistant Features Editor for The Plant Cell, where he contributes to communicating plant sciences to global audience.
Panellist: Bernice Waweru
Bernice Waweru is a Kenyan plant scientist who recently submitted her PhD thesis at the John Innes Centre, UK. Her research combines bioinformatics, genomics and plant breeding to explore wheat genetic diversity and support breeding for disease resistance.
She previously worked at the International Livestock Research Institute and the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization, with experience generating resources for underutilised crops. A previous recipient of a Black in Plant Science Research Excellence Award, Bernice values the encouragement, collaboration and shared learning that have shaped her journey.
She cares about creating spaces where others feel welcome, supported and able to grow. For Bernice, leadership means listening, sharing knowledge and helping people recognise their strengths. She hopes to be a bridge to opportunities for others, particularly those navigating unfamiliar paths into science, and to contribute to a plant science community where people feel a sense of belonging and can thrive together.
Panellist: Sibongile Chimzinga
Dr Sibongile Zimba is a Research Fellow at the University of Bristol whose research aims to improve crop nutritional quality and resilience to climate stress. Growing up in Malawi prompted her passion for plant science to tackle global hunger and malnutrition. As a Lecturer and Senior Lecturer at Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources, in Malawi, she taught and mentored students, supervised research projects, and developed training resources that continue to support good agricultural practice.
Speaker: Charlene Dambire
Workshop: Building your ‘Brand’ as a Scientist
Social media is an often-overlooked tool for academic career development, opening doors to collaboration, invitations, and opportunity. Yet early-career Black and minoritised scientists frequently face added barriers around visibility and belonging in scientific spaces. In this interactive workshop, participants will explore practical skills for building an authentic, effective social media presence, including profile-building, audience engagement, collaboration-building, and translating online visibility into real opportunities.
Chair: Kathryn De Abreu
Kathryn is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Southampton, UK. She obtained her PhD in 2025 at Southampton, which used CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing to illustrate the role of bZIP transcription factors in Zn homeostasis in barley (Hordeum vulgare), supervised by Dr. Lorraine Williams. Since then, Kathryn completed a postdoc in plant-microbe interactions with Dr. Tomislav Cernava, investigating the impact of abiotic stresses on the recruitment and shaping of the barley microbiome through host Microbiome gene activity. She now works as a Research Fellow in Plant Bioacoustics in conjunction with the Institute of Sound and Vibration Research (ISVR) and the Schools of Biological Sciences and Engineering at Southampton.
Panellist: Erica Hawkins
Panellist: Anna Amtmann