Lab Members

Alex Luckew (Postdoc: 2019 – present)

Alex graduated with a B.S. in Crop Sciences from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He continued his education at Iowa State University receiving two M.S., one in Plant Pathology and one in Plant Breeding and a PhD in Plant Breeding. His previous projects focused on disease resistance breeding, specifically soybean sudden death syndrome. Currently, his research focus is identifying resistance in squash to whiteflies and the viruses they transmit.

Samuel Manthi (PhD Student: 2019 to present)

Samuel obtained his Bachelor of Education (Science) at the Egerton University (Kenya) and MSC from the Northeast Normal University (Jilin, China). He has worked on a number of plants including Finger millet, Pearl millet, Sorghum, Pigeonpea and Groundnut at the International Crops Research for Arid and Semi-Arid Tropics (I.C.R.I.S.A.T) Nairobi. His current focus is research on Genes controlling fruit size and shape in watermelon.

Nebahat Sari (Postdoc: 2023 – present)

Nebahat graduated with a B.S. as a valedictorian from the Department of Horticulture of Cukurova University Turkey. She obtained her MSc and PhD on Cucurbit breeding with a bilateral cooperation between Cukurova University, Turkey and INRAE, France. Her previous projects focused on doubled haploid technology; collection, characterization, and management of Cucurbit genetic resources; F1 hybrid breeding; biotic and abiotic stress in Cucurbits; vegetable grafting and plant tissue culture. Currently, she is working on resistance to whitefly transmitted viruses and watermelon tissue culture.

Amelia Boettcher (MS Student: 2023 to present)

Amelia graduated from the University of Florida with a Bachelor’s degree in Plant Science and worked at BASF as a watermelon variety trial assistant, before joining the lab.