Dr. June Yao leads the regulatory and stewardship team in Nuseed with focus on obtaining global regulatory approvals for its sustainable innovations such as omega-3 canola. She has over 25 years of experience in Ag biotechnology industry and global development field. June is committed to being a mindful leader and is passionate about global sustainable development and transforming innovations to make the world a better place.

Chris heads the Enogen business at Syngenta. Enogen is ground-breaking technology that provides alpha-amylase delivered in the corn grain. Beyond the advantages of the alpha-amylase technology, Enogen also includes a full identity preserved system seed to grain as well as online tools that can connect soil to consumer, benefits in both livestock and biofuels, as well as traceability and sustainability opportunities. Chris has been with Syngenta for 24 years. Prior to his current role, he headed Stewardship and Stakeholder Relations for Enogen. Chris has also held roles in agronomy including heading Agronomy across all U.S. crops and product lines, heading the U.S. Seeds agronomy group and other various roles in agronomy and sales. Prior to his career in Syngenta Chris also led a retail organization agronomy sales department. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Agronomy from South Dakota State University.

Renato Horikoshi is the Insect Resistance Management Lead for Brazil at Bayer Crop Science. He has a PhD in Entomology from University of São Paulo, Brazil. Since 2017, has been working in Bayer focusing on resistance management to Bt technologies. Renato has authored several papers related to Bt resistance and pest management.

David is passionate about the contribution and future of agbiotech to Australian and global agriculture. During a 23 year career with Monsanto, David was actively involved in the development and adoption of conservation tillage by Australian farmers. Since 1996 David has been actively involved in the introduction of Australia’s first agbiotech crops, Ingard® Cotton, Roundup Ready® canola and most recently Super High Oleic Safflower. Since establishing his consulting firm, SGA Solutions in 2006 David has provided consulting services to Australian and international private and public sector clients in the development and implementation of pathway to market strategies for innovative technologies applicable to the grains, horticulture, livestock, forage, forestry and seafood industries. David has co-authored a range of published papers relating to the development and adoption of innovative agbiotech technologies. David is currently working on pathway to market strategies for a range of second and third generation crops including drought tolerance, reduced methane emissions and plant sourced proteins.. Since 2000, David has been actively engaged in the development and implementation of a number of industry pathway to market initiatives that have facilitated the introduction of agbiotech innovations in Australia.

I am an EBRC (Engineering Biology Research Consortium) council member and a SynBYSS (Synthetic Biology Young Speaker Series) chair. I have expertise in systems and synthetic biology. I aim to solve global agricultural, environmental, manufacturing, and health problems through engineering biology. My research projects have been supported by Gates Foundation, AIChE, and 10 different US agencies (21 external grants), and I have secured >$10M ($35M for the entire teams since 7/1/2012). These projects and my prior research efforts have resulted in 75 publications (64 as the PI), 135 invited talks, and 10 patents. My achievements have also been recognized with many awards, including a Langer Prize for Innovation and Entrepreneurial Excellence, a B&B Daniel I.C. Wang Award, an NSF CAREER award, and an ONR Young Investigator Award. My global leadership efforts include 1) my activity and role at EBRC as a Council Member to provide the vision to address national and global needs through synthetic biology and 2) my service to SynBYSS as the Founding Chair to provide a weekly, virtual, and multi-year forum where a global thought leader gives an opening 5 min talk, followed by a 45 min, rising star’s talk, for >1,000 global audiences.