Graham King (Executive Director)

Southern Cross University Southern Cross Plant Science, 1 Military Rd,Lismore, NSW 2480, Australia

Executive Director, DivSeek International Network Inc.

Graham has over 34 years post-doctoral research and research management experience in crop plant genetics, genomics, genetic resource characterization and data management, working on a range of horticultural and arable crops. He has made significant contributions to establishing genomic and experimental genetic resources, using these to resolve a wide range of phenotypic trait loci. He has also been involved in establishing data standards for gene nomenclature and description of genetic resources in community data resources. Throughout his career he has worked closely with plant breeders in the public and private sector, and led major national and international research consortia, generating fundamental knowledge applied to crop genetic improvement.

Graham has had a long involvement in crop ex situ genetic resource conservation and characterization, driving several efforts aimed at conserving and characterising genetic diversity within crop species, including extending the utility of data curation pipelines to integrate information from trait to genome. Recent research outcomes have included de novo genome assembly, development of the OBO Foundry registered Crop Dietary Nutrition Ontology.

Graham is a part-time Professor at Southern Cross University, Australia, where for seven years he was Director of Plant Science, establishing a pre-breeding seed genebank for global niche crops and initiating close links with regional producers. He is an Honorary Professor at the University of Nottingham (UK), and sits on the Genomics for Australian Plants steering committee. Gaining his Ph.D from the University of London, he has over 160 refereed publications and has held positions at Horticulture Research International, University of Warwick and Rothamsted Research.

Graham was an elected member of the DivSeek Board of Directors from 2019- Feb 2021, and vice-Chair from Sept 2020-Feb 2021. He was the founding coordinator for the DivSeek Australasian Regional Hub.

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