Maria comes from Germany and her major research interest focuses on unravelling the genetic underpinnings of plant adaptation to environmental challenges. Together with her team members she is exploiting natural genetic variation within the important crop plant barley (Hordeum vulgare), its wild progenitor Hordeum v. ssp. spontaneum and related wild Hordeum species to dissect the quantitative genetic basis of development in response to different environmental cues (abiotic stresses)

Bettina comes from Germany and completed an apprenticeship as a foreign language correspondent. She then worked for a number of trading companies as a secretary and accounting assistant. In 2020 Bettina joined the HHU. She is responsible for all administrative tasks in our team and gives support whenever help is needed

Michael comes from Ghana and is interested in understanding adaptive trait variation within and between species of the grass genus Hordeum. Within the ERC-funded project PERLIFE, he combines field and greenhouse experiments to study natural genetic variation in growth and developmental dynamics, physiology and metabolism in wild annual and perennial Hordeum species under favorable and abiotic stress conditions.

Einar comes from Iceland and is interested in the genomics of wild relatives of barley. He generates genomic resources of multiple annual and perennial Hordeum species and is keen to discover genetic differences linked to life-history variation and adaptation to diverse environments

Timo comes from Germany and is interested in the evolutionary genetics of wild plants. He combines genomic, ecological and experimental approaches to study plant adaptation and diversification. Within the CRC TRR341 “Plant Ecological Genetics”, he investigates how genetic and phenotypic variation within and between ploidy levels contributes to adaptation to heterogeneous and changing environments in the Hordeum murinum species complex.

Shanda comes from  China and completed his doctoral thesis in Natural Sciences at the MPIPZ in Cologne. Before joining our group he has worked as a Senior Plant Researcher in a private company. Shanda supports our work by developing new genome editing and transformation technologies in barley and related wild grasses. He will contribute to our ERC financed PERLIFE project and engineer barley lines with altered longevity. 

Chandar comes from India and works in the DFG-funded research unit "Cereal Stem Cell Systems" to explore the initiation, maintenance and termination of inflorescence meristems in barley. He identifies and explores molecular players like hormones and genes that influence inflorescence, spikelet and floral meristem development. He is also interested in understanding the mechanism of barley spikelet fertility and grain development in high ambient temperatures

Agatha comes from Germany and investigates the molecular basis of shoot architecture development in barley. By combining induced and natural variation with NGS sequencing, she aims to identify key genes governing shoot architecture traits such as tiller number and spike branching

Kumsal comes from Turkey. She is interested in understanding how major flowering pathways, hormone and metabolite networks connect to each other to regulate plant growth, spike development and fertility in barley under high ambient temperatures

Sandy comes from the Philippines. He is passionate about plant genetic resources conservation and sustainable use, especially with crop wild relatives. Currently, he is working on deciphering the ecological and genetic adaptation of Hordeum murinum to changing environments as part of the ERC-funded project PERLIFE

Luca comes from Germany and is interested in identifying the genetic variations that underlie differences in life history within the grass clade Hordeum. He will employ various genetic approaches to uncover coding and regulatory variations associated with the repeated evolution of annual species within the Hordeum phylogeny.

Gabi comes from Germany and works in the DFG-funded research unit "Cereal Stem Cell Systems" to explore the initiation, maintenance and termination of inflorescence meristems in barley. She is responsible for the generation of transgenic barley lines to study the molecular control of different barley meristems

Thea comes from Germany and did her apprenticeship at the HHU. She then started to work in a biotechnology company as a technical assistant but eventually decided to return to HHU to work together with students. She has a lot of experience in molecular biology methods and supports our team with all upcoming work in the lab

Rebekka comes from Germany and organises plant cultivation within the group. Besides assisting with plant work, crosses of annual and perennial wild Hordeum species are also part of her work

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Nida comes from Germany and supports the cultivation, scoring and harvest of cultivated and wild barley. During the field season, she is also involved in outdoor experiments in the botanical garden at the HHU.

Annabelle comes from Germany and supports the cultivation, scoring and harvest of cultivated and wild barley. During the field season, she is also involved in outdoor experiments in the botanical garden at the HHU.

Elias comes from Germany and supports the cultivation, scoring and harvest of cultivated and wild barley. During the field season, he is also involved in outdoor experiments in the botanical garden at the HHU.

Additionally he is responsible for supervising and instructing students during the Bio250 practical course.

Mykyta is a Bachelor student in Biology working in our group on the functional characterization of PRR genes in barley. His project focuses on analyzing the effects of mutations in these genes at both the phenotypic level and on gene expression. The project is supervised by Agatha Walla.

Charlotte is from Germany and is doing her bachelor thesis under the supervision of Shanda. Her project aims to evaluate the feasibility of transgen-free genome editing through grafting in barley.

Jon is a Bachelor student of Quantitative Biology at HHU and is conducting his BSc thesis research. He is working on the vernalisation gene VRN-H1 and vernalisation requirement dynamics in barley. Additionally he is mining RNAseq data to identify and validate stable reference genes for expression quantification. Jon is supervised by Einar B. Haraldsson.

Levin is a Biology student at HHU. For his BSc thesis, he investigates variation in early seedling establishment in the barley wild relative Hordeum murinum and examines its association with ploidy level, geographic origin and genome size. Levin is supervised by Timo Hellwig.

Midori is a Master’s student in Biology at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf and is completing her Master’s thesis at our institute. Her work focuses on the functional characterisation of PRR genes in barley. She is supervised by Agatha Walla

Max is a masters student from Germany. He investigates variation in vernalization requirement in the barley wild relative Hordeum murinum and examines its association with allelic and expression variation in known vernalization genes. Max is supervised by Timo Hellwig. 

Moritz is a Biology student at HHU. For his BSc thesis, he investigates the use of morphological characters for taxonomic assignment in wall barley, Hordeum murinum, and tests whether morphology-based taxonomy reflects genomic relationships. Moritz is supervised by Timo Hellwig.

Marcelina is from Germany and is doing her bachelor thesis under the supervision of Shanda. Her project focuses on investigating the role of HvSWEET13 sugar transporters in barley growth and development using CRISPR mutants and overexpression lines.