Ana Luisa Oliveira

Ana Luísa Garcia-Oliveira is a Portuguese Agronomic Engineer (ISA, University of Lisbon), and obtained her MSc at CAU (Beijing, China) working on quantitative genetics for increased micronutrient levels in rice. Getting a very competitive fellowship from FCT (Portugal) in 2009 she started her PhD on resistance to aluminium (Al) in bread wheat and working with great scientists at UTAD, UCM, ITQB, UAB and IAS-Cordoba. The work led to the discovery of the second functional marker for Al tolerance in wheat and awarded with the Early Career Award from the IWGSC (2014). After a short staying at UTAD working on bread and durum wheat carotenoids and antioxidants, she started the journey in Africa where she stayed almost 2 years at IITA-Kenya working on cassava resistance to CBSD with Kenyan, Tanzanian, and Ugandan partners. She went thereafter to IITA HQ at Ibadan, Nigeria to proceed for 2 years as a Post-doc working on maize. She became an Associate Scientist during 2018 working on molecular topics on maize, cowpea, soybean, and Africa Yam bean. Among studies is the first study on striga quantitative genetics was published (2020). Research interests include plant breeding and quantitative genetics for important traits related to plant homeostasis, both from nutritional and plant stress adaptation point of view. From 2021, she is the EiB-CIMMYT Regional Genotyping Coordinator for Africa, based at Nairobi (Kenya) and helping in the creation of free database for low density sequencing validated KASP markers, logistics and training.