Julie Borlaug
Borlaug Consulting and the Borlaug Foundation

Ms. Julie Borlaug is the President of Borlaug Consulting and the Borlaug Foundation For 22 years and has successfully worked in international agricultural development, agricultural communications, and external and corporate relations. As the granddaughter of Dr. Norman Borlaug, she works to champion his legacy and lend a voice to his desire to see more successful collaborative partnerships across sectors and scientific disciplines to bring better and faster innovation to end hunger. She is the president of Borlaug Consulting and the Borlaug Foundation. Ms. Borlaug serves on several boards and advisory councils, including the Council of Advisory for the World Food Prize, the Advisor to CIMMYT, the Global Farmer Network advisory board, the Champion’s Council Network for the UN Food Systems Summit, the Board of Trustee for Agricultural Science & Technology (CAST), the U.S. National Food Systems Dialogues, the Texas A&M Agriculture Vice Chancellor’s advisory board, Counterpart, AgTech PR,the Thought for Food Challenge Board, and the Global Coalition for Attracting and Retaining Youth in Agriculture. Ms. Borlaug received a B.A. from Texas A&M in international studies and political science and an M.B.A. from the University of Dallas.

Rodomiro Ortiz
Genetics and Plant Breeding, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences

Rodomiro Ortiz (Lima, Perú; 1958) is Faculty Professor and Chair of Genetics and Plant Breeding at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), and SLU Breeding Network Chairman. He holds a PhD in Plant Breeding & Genetics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and worked as young researcher at UNALM (Perú), Centro Internacional de la Papa (CIP, Perú) and Rutgers University, was scientist and director of various CGIAR Centers (CIMMYT. ICRISAT, IITA), and held a Nordic professorship on plant genetic resources at the then Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University of Denmark (merged thereafter with the University of Copenhagen). Professor Ortiz has written ca. 1000 reports, of which about 50% are journal articles or edited book chapters with h-index of 79 and cited by 25810 [as per Google Scholar on 2024.08.07]. The CGIAR awarded to IITA the prestigious 1994 King Baudouin Award for the multidisciplinary research of the team working in plantain and banana improvement, in which he was program leader. In 2012, Plant Breeding Reviews dedicated him its volume 36. Professor Ortiz was the principal investigator of SLU/ICARDA–led research development partnership project Adapting durum wheat varieties to the Senegal Basin for food security that won the 2017 Olam Prize for Innovation in Food Security. He was given the Bertebos Prize 2022 for mastering the use of new molecular scientific methods to be a driving force in the breeding of crops of great importance for food supply in Africa, America and Europe. Professor Ortiz was member of CGIAR Independent Science and Partnership Council (ISPC, 2015–2019) and of the Commission on Sustainable Agriculture Intensification (CoSAI, 2020–2021), international fellow of the Royal Swedish Academy of Agriculture and Forestry (KSLA) since 2019, member of the Royal Physiographic Society at Lund (KFS) from 2021 onwards, and fellow of the African Academy of Sciences (FAAS) since 2021.

Steven Runo
Professor of Molecular Biology at Kenyatta University

Steven Runo is a Professor of Molecular Biology at Kenyatta University. He earned his Bachelor's degree in Biochemistry from Kenyatta University in 1998, followed by a Master's degree in Biotechnology from the same institution in 2003. After completing his Master's, he was awarded a PhD fellowship by the Rockefeller Foundation to pursue Molecular Biology in a Sandwich program between Kenyatta University and the University of California, Davis, earning his PhD in 2008. He then undertook postdoctoral training at the University of Sheffield (UK) and the University of Virginia (USA) before accepting a faculty position at Kenyatta University. Currently, his lab uses molecular genetic tools to understand interactions between parasitic plants that limit crop production in Africa and their hosts. In recognition of his contributions to science, Steven Runo was awarded the Royal Society Africa Prize in 2020.

Carl Ramage
Rautaki Solutions PTY LTD

Dr. Carl Ramage (GAIDC) is the Managing Director of Rautaki Solutions, a consultancy business dedicated to fostering innovation and research excellence within the life sciences sector. He specialises in establishing sustainable capabilities in biosafety and bio-risk management, and the formulation and execution of compliance management strategies. His expertise extends to initiatives for the commercialisation and pathway to market of biotech products for the biomedical, agricultural, and food sectors. Notably, he is the sole Excellence Through Stewardship auditor in Australasia. Carl has a Doctor of Philosophy degree from the University of Queensland (AUS), a Master of Science (Hons I) degree from Canterbury University (NZ), and is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

Irene Sacristán Sánchez
Directorate General Health and Food Safety of the European Commission

Irene Sacristán Sánchez is head of unit for Biotechnology in the Directorate General Health and Food Safety of the European Commission. She joined the Commission in 2003, spending several years working on the development and negotiation of pharmaceutical legislation. Before joining the Biotech Unit, she was head of the policy development and legislative unit in the European Anti-Fraud Office. She is a lawyer by training

Justus Wesseler
Agricultural Economics and Rural Policy at Wageningen University, The Netherlands

Prof. Dr. Justus Wesseler holds the chair in Agricultural Economics and Rural Policy at Wageningen University, The Netherlands. He has a degree in agricultural, environmental and natural resource economics from the University of Göttingen, Germany. His research work is on bioeconomy economics and policies. The major focus is on the contribution of value chains to improve sustainability and the impact of new technologies and regulations on the value chain in this respect. His research work has been published in more than 100 contributions to peer reviewed journals and books. He is president of the International Consortium of Applied Bioeconomy Research (ICABR). He has been involved in a number of small and large scale international research project as team member and/or coordinator and been invited to serve as an adviser in academia and research.