My research focused on understanding the genetics underlying cold acclimation and de-acclimation and their interactions with vernalization in forage grasses adaptation. Current research interests are population genetics, molecular ecology, genomics of abiotic and biotic stress tolerance (especially cold acclimation, freezing tolerance, winter survival and fungal infection studies), genetic diversity and climate adaptation (temperature, photo period flowering time). During my PhD studies in China, I worked on rice quantitative genetics and plant breeding focused on Identifying novel genes for yield and plant height in rice. Since moved to Norway, I am Involved in projects like VARCLIM (Adaptation of forage grasses two cold acclimation, 2011-2014) during my post-doctoral period and in GenSelTim (Genomic selection in Timothy, 2016-2020) as a research scientist in the group of Prof. Odd Arne Rognli, funded by Norwegian research Council. In addition, I am also involved in collaborations with other projects related to transcriptome studies. where my role is to apply next generation sequencing techniquies to understand the biology underlying the "red clover seed setting," "fungal (pink snow mold) effects on Lolium perenne during early infection", "understanding the abscission effects in poinsettia" and "genetic diversity studies in Ensete and sweet potato in Ethiopia and South Sudan. " Participation in these projects provided me an extensive experience in bioinformatics skills and gave an immense knowledge on genetics and genomics of other plant species in addition to the forage crops.
- HU153A