Claudia Canales Holzeis obtained her DPhil in Plant Sciences from the University of Oxford in 2001. She has nearly two decades of experience in plant genetics research and eleven years of experience in projects related to rural development in Asian, African, and Latin American countries. Between 2012 and 2022, she was a part-time consultant for the European Academies' Science Advisory Council’s Biosciences Programme. She was a consultant for the InterAcademy Partnership (IAP) Project on Food and Nutrition Security and Agriculture and for IAP's Climate Change and Health Project. Claudia was appointed to the role of Chief Executive of the Kirkhouse Trust in 2020.

Distinguished Professor Emeritus Paul Gepts, Department of Plant Sciences at the University of California, Davis, is a plant geneticist interested in crop biodiversity and domestication, its conservation, and applications to crop improvement. He obtained a diploma in Ingénieur Agronome from Agro-Biotech Gembloux (Université de Liège, Belgium) and a PhD in Plant Breeding & Plant Genetics from the University of Wisconsin, U.S.A. He has been especially interested in beans of the genus Phaseolus because they constitute a source of proteins and other nutrients in the human diet worldwide.  His publications have been cited ~ 34,000 times (Google Scholar, h = 94) and reflect the breadth of his research approaches, from botanical explorations in South America to the genetics/genomics of Phaseolus domestication.  His research on crop biodiversity has been widely applied in developing improved bean cultivars in California, the U.S., and abroad, principally in Latin America and Africa (the latter as a scientific coordinator of the African Bean Consortium funded by the Kirkhouse Trust).   His awards include election to fellow AAAS, the American Society of Agronomy, and the Crop Science Society of America (CSSA).  He received the Meyer Medal for Plant Genetic Resources and the International Crop Science Award of CSSA.  He is the recipient of the Agropolis L. Malassis Prize from France.  In 2022, he was invited to give the Ron Phillips Lecture in Plant Genetics at the CSSA Annual Meeting.

After completing a PhD at the University of Adelaide, Robert Koebner spent about 20 years as a wheat geneticist at the Plant Breeding Institute, Cambridge and its successor, the John Innes Centre, Norwich. In 2006, he left the John Innes Centre to become a scientific consultant to the Kirkhouse Trust, helping to develop and provide advice to its programmes in Africa and India. He has authored/co-authored over 70 peer-reviewed journal articles, mostly during his active research career from 1985-2006. Robert Koebner was the founder and editor of the international journal Plant Genetic Resources: Characterization and Utilization, which is currently published by Cambridge University Press.

Having post-graduate (MSc and PhD) education in Plant Breeding and Genetics, Prem Mathur obtained an MSc in cell biology from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, and a Post-Doctoral Fellowship at the Oxford Forestry Institute, University of Oxford, UK. He served at the Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR) for 18 years as a Scientist, Senior Scientist, and Principal Scientist at the Indian Grassland and Fodder Research Institute and the National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources from 1995 to 2016, held various positions with the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, including the Regional Representative for Central and South Asia. He organised and participated in over 60 international events on the conservation and use of plant genetic resources, including serving as the Organising Secretary for the “First International Congress of Plant Genetic Resources”. He was awarded the “Dr Harbhajan Singh Award” for his outstanding contributions in the field of Plant Genetic Resources. He has over 95 scientific publications to his credit.  Currently, he is engaged as a consultant with Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, UNDP-India office, and is the Scientific Leader of the Stress Tolerant Orphan Legume programme of the Kirkhouse Trust.

Sonia Morgan was the Trust Secretary of the Kirkhouse Trust for 20 years, from its founding until 2020.  She is a trustee and chair of the Edina Trust, which supports educational projects that promote an interest in science in primary schools. She has a BSc (Genetics) & PhD from the University of Edinburgh and worked in the Scottish Civil Service and as an academic administrator at the Open University. She was a Director of Oxford Gene Technology Ltd (1995 – 2017).

María Muñoz Amatriaín is a “Beatriz Galindo” Distinguished Researcher at the University of Leon (Spain). She received her B.S. in Biology from the University of Salamanca (Spain) and her Ph.D. in Molecular and Cellular Biology from the University of Zaragoza (Spain). Her PhD work was conducted in the Department of Genetics and Plant Production at Aula Dei Experimental Station (CSIC) and involved QTL mapping and gene expression studies linked to barley microspore embryogenesis. Subsequently, María worked as a postdoc in the Department of Agronomy and Plant Genetics at the University of Minnesota, where she participated in a range of fundamental and applied projects with barley as the model system. In 2014, she moved to the University of California Riverside, where she first became involved in cowpea research, participating in several genetics and genomics projects, including the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Climate Resilient Cowpea. From February 2019 until she joined the University of Leon in July 2021, María was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Soil and Crop Sciences at Colorado State University. Her research focuses on legumes, mostly cowpeas, because of their major importance as a protein-rich food and feed in many food-insecure regions of the world.

Dr Parker completed his PhD in 2020 in plant biology and a post-doctoral fellowship in Professor Paul Gepts's lab. Dr Parker’s research interests include the characterisation of the genetic basis of complex traits in common beans. As a plant breeder, he has developed and released five common bean varieties. Teaching is another of his passions, and he has developed and taught a course (PLS 198: Drones in Agriculture) at UC Davis. Dr Parker has trained several KT students since 2017 in several topics, including molecular biology techniques and the use of drones in and video-making in research.  Dr Parker also has an educational YouTube channel on methods related to plant science and agriculture.

Following his PhD in the Chemistry Department of Glasgow University, Edwin M. Southern (EMS) joined the ARC Low Temperature Research Station in Cambridge to study the effects of ionising radiation on proteins.  These studies led to theories, still accepted, of the structure and evolutionary origins of the tandemly repeated sequences. EMS was the first to use type II restriction endonucleases to study the structure of sequences from eukaryotic DNAs. In 1979, EMS set up the first project to map the human genome using molecular methods in the MRC Clinical and Population Cytogenetics Unit. These studies required the development of new methods of analysis: accurate sizing of restriction fragments by gel electrophoresis, automated methods for reading DNA sequences from sequencing gels, and separation of large DNA fragments by crossed-field gel electrophoresis. In 1985, EMS took up the Whitley Chair of Biochemistry at the University of Oxford. In 1988, he introduced the oligonucleotide arrays or “DNA chips” used to analyse DNA sequences by molecular hybridisation on a large scale. The array method has been adopted by many laboratories for genotyping, resequencing and expression analysis. In 1995, EMS founded the company Oxford Gene Technology. In 2000, EMS founded a research charity, Kirkhouse Trust and an educational charity, the Edina Trust, using royalty income from licensing the microarray technology.

Michael P. Timko, PhD, is the Lewis & Clark Professor of Biology at the University of Virginia and Professor of Public Health Science at the UVA School of Medicine. He is a broadly trained biologist with over 40 years of experience in studying the growth, biochemistry, genetics and functional genomics of plants. He received his BS from the College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences and his PhD from the Department of Biological Sciences at Rutgers University. He held postdoctoral research positions at Brandeis University and Rockefeller University before joining the faculty at UVA. His research seeks to expand our understanding of the key components involved in the regulation of plant disease resistance and abiotic stress responses. He has authored over 200 articles in highly respected peer-reviewed scientific journals and written numerous invited reviews and book chapters. Dr Timko’s research has been supported by various national and international funding agencies and private foundations. Among his honours is the Hartwell Foundation Individual Biomedical Research Award for his work on probiotic-based therapeutics, the Jefferson Scholar Foundation Faculty Prize for his leadership, scholarship and citizenship, and the “Chevalier de l'Ordre National du Burkina faso” bestowed by the President and Government of Burkina Faso in recognition of his work improving food security in the nation. Orchid ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8258-7156