Virtual Event
Top Crop Summit 2022 – Western Summit
February 23, 2022 at 11:00am ET

Brian Beres
Dr. Brian Beres is a senior research scientist at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s Lethbridge Research Centre and Adjunct Professor at the University of Alberta. Dr. Beres leads several multi-disciplinary projects developing innovative and integrated crop management systems. His impact on academia and industry has been recognized on several occasions including the Alberta Seed Growers Honorary Life Award; Canadian Journal of Plant Science Best Paper; CJPS Outstanding Associate Editor; and Fellow – Canadian Society of Agronomy. Dr. Beres publishes in the areas of agronomy and crop science and has been the author or co-author of 97 peer-reviewed research articles, 2 edited books and 2 book chapters. He serves as Editor-In-Chief for the Canadian Journal of Plant Science and Special Issues Editor for Frontiers in Plant Science. Dr. Beres has several international collaborations and represents Canada on the Research Committee of the global Wheat Initiative, where he also recently developed and Chairs an Expert Working Group for global agronomy wheat research.

Patricio Grassini
Dr. Patricio Grassini is an Associate Professor of Agronomy at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL). Patricio earned a B.S. in Agricultural Engineering from University of Buenos Aires (Argentina) and a Ph.D. in Agronomy from UNL. He has authored 91 articles published in peer-review journals, including top-tier journals such as Nature Communications, Nature Sustainability, Nature Food, PNAS, and Plant Cell & Environment. His research interests center on crop yield potential, yield-gap analysis, resource-use efficiency, and plant physiology. Patricio’s applied research covers a diverse range of cropping systems, including rainfed crops in South America, irrigated crops in the U.S. Corn Belt and Asia, and oil palm in Indonesia. A major on-going project is the Global Yield Gap Atlas (www.yieldgap.org), which provides estimates of gaps between actual and potential yield for major cropping systems. Dr. Grassini was recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship and other three fellowships and six awards, including the Agronomy Society of America (ASA) Early Career Award and W.L. Nelson Award for Diagnosing Yield-Limiting Factors. Patricio also serves as a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of Field Crops Research and Global Food Security journals. Patricio was the Chair of the Crop Science Society of America Crop Ecology Division during the 2019 term.

Aiden Sanden
Aiden Sanden is a second-year MSc. student in the department of Agriculture and Resource Economics at the University of Saskatchewan. He is from the West-Central region of Saskatchewan, where his family operates a fifth-generation grain and cattle farm. Aiden earned his bachelor’s degree in Agribusiness from the University of Saskatchewan in 2019. Under the supervision of Dr. Richard Gray, Aiden’s research focuses on the economic component of the yield gap for wheat producers in Saskatchewan.

Romulo Lollato
Dr. Romulo P. Lollato got his B.S. degree in Agronomy from Londrina State University (Brazil), M.S. in Plant and Soil Sciences from Oklahoma State University (OSU), and Ph.D. in Crop Science from OSU. Currently, Romulo is an associate professor of Agronomy at Kansas State University, Extension Wheat and Forages Specialist, where he provides leadership for an interdisciplinary team developing Extension and applied research programs. He is an associate editor for Agronomy Journal and a reviewer for several refereed journals.

Romulo’s grew up helping on his family’s soybean-corn-wheat farming operation in southern Brazil. His interest in wheat increased during his MS and PhD work, both focused on different aspects of wheat management. Currently, Romulo directly oversees a multicultural team of about 10 students including masters, Ph.D., and visiting scientists, who work on over 20 different research projects related to minimizing wheat yield gaps through improved management practices or applied wheat physiology.