Industry Career Panel
Organized by the Grad, Postdoc, and Tech Network Volunteers.
Industry scientists will take turns sharing their career experiences. Time will be available for audience questions!
Join us on September 18th from 12-1PM ET for an insightful discussion!
Meet the Panelists
Annie Saltarikos
Sr. VP, Research and Development
Plastomics
M. Annie Saltarikos, Ph.D. is the senior Vice President of Research and Development at Plastomics, Inc. Prior to joining Plastomics in July 2024, Annie has had roles of increased scientific strategy and people leadership responsibilities over the past 15 years at Monsanto/Bayer’s Plant Biotechnology division including leading Discovery and Production teams in plant transformation, controlled environment, and crop gene editing as well as cross-divisional experiences delivering innovative field, lab and seed processing solutions as the global head of Seed Production Innovation, Science and Engineering Products in Product Supply at Bayer. Annie was a Senior Science Fellow at Bayer and has championed diverse cross-divisional initiatives such as the creation of digital, modular platforms for operational research models and novel crop genome design deployment capabilities. Annie is a passionate advocate for science communication and outreach as well as being active in plant biology scientific societies. Annie received her M.S. in Plant Pathology and her Ph.D. in Plant Breeding and Plant Genetics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison working on developing molecular trait tools and technologies in corn and soybean prior to joining Monsanto/Bayer.
Morgan E. McCaw
Senior Scientist
Ohalo Genetics
Morgan began lab work in James Birchler’s Lab, first as an undergraduate, then lab tech studying centromere drive using fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) to visualize chromosomes, centromeres, and transgenes. From 2011-2017 he completed a PhD in the Birchler Lab studying transfer of minichromosomes, B chromosomes, and A chromosomes from Stock 6-based haploid inducers to induced maternal haploids. During PhD he also developed and released Fast-Flowering Mini-Maize lines and began breeding tissue culture amenable versions.
From 2017-2020 Morgan was a postdoc in Kan Wang’s lab developing a routine transformation protocol for Fast-Flowering Mini-Maize A Transformable (FFMM-AT) and translating recalcitrant line transformation using Baby boom + Wuschel2 “QuickCorn” protocols developed by Corteva to academic lab settings.
In July 2020 Morgan joined Ohalo Genetics to spin-up and lead the Maize Boosted Breeding program. In those last 4 years Ohalo has grown from 5 full-time employees to over 80, and has active partnerships to deliver innovative agricultural products and novel breeding systems in a variety of crops.
Zoe Dubrow
Scientist
Pairwise
I joined Pairwise in 2021 as a scientist on the Delivery Technology team. My work focuses on developing new non-transgenic transformation methods to deliver gene editing tools to vegetatively propagated crops, as well as designing rapid assays to test proprietary tools in a variety of plant systems. Prior to my time at Pairwise, I was a USDA pre-doctoral fellow in the Department of Plant Pathology and Plant-Microbe Biology at Cornell University where I worked on virulence mechanisms of bacterial plant pathogens.
Frank L. McFarland
Post-doctoral Visiting Scientist in Plant Genome Engineering
Corteva Agriscience
Frank McFarland is a Post-Doctoral Visiting Scientist in Plant Genome Engineering at Corteva Agriscience working under Dr. Bill Gordon-Kamm, where he works on method development for maize leaf transformation. Frank completed his Ph.D. in Plant Breeding and Plant Genetics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2022. His doctoral research focused on elucidating the biological and genetic mechanisms underlying genotype-dependent embryogenic culture response in maize.
Peizhen Yang
Bayer Science Fellow and Technology Innovation Lead in Plant Biotechnology
Bayer Crop Science
Peizhen Yang, PhD, has over 20 years of research experience in life sciences, including 13 years at Monsanto/Bayer. She is a Bayer Science Fellow and technology innovation lead in Plant Biotechnology in Bayer Crop Science. Her current efforts focus on gene expression optimization, genome editing technologies and optimizing delivery into crops. Prior to Plant biotech, she has led multiple interdisciplinary teams focused on product and bioprocess development of RNA technology, from discovery, high throughput production/testing to manufacturing scale-up. Peizhen is passionate about Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and has been mentoring others and actively involved in Bayer business resource groups. Externally, she serves as a mentor in Bayer University Mentoring Program. She earned a master’s degree in microbiology, Molecular Biology and Biochemistry from University of Idaho, and a PhD in Cell and Molecular Biology from UW-Madison.
