Shivali Sharma

Shivali Sharma is an accomplished plant geneticist and pre-breeder with over 20 years of postdoctoral experience in plant genetic resources conservation and utilization, wide hybridization, trait discovery, doubled-haploidy breeding, and climate-smart agriculture. She currently serves as Senior Specialist – Plant Genetic Resources & Pre-breeding (Consultant) at the Global Crop Diversity Trust, coordinating the implementation of BOLD WP2 projects on rice, finger millet, and grasspea across Asia and Africa, and is Adjunct Associate Professor at Murdoch University, Australia, as well as co-chairs the Wheat Initiative’s Expert Working Group on Global Wheat Germplasm Conservation and Use. She has led multidisciplinary international research projects, notably at ICRISAT, developing and disseminating over 5000 pre-breeding lines and contributing to crop variety development across multiple crops and countries. A recipient of several prestigious awards, she serves on the editorial boards of leading international journals and is a prolific scientist with ~140 publications. She has also mentored M.Sc. and Ph.D. students, contributing significantly to capacity building and research leadership in global agriculture.

Benjamin Kilian is a plant genetic resources specialist with expertise in genome diversity, trait discovery, and the use of wild relatives in crop improvement. He began his research career at the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research and later served as Principal Investigator at the Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research (IPK), working on the diversity and domestication of cereals. He has authored more than 150 peer‑reviewed publications on genetic diversity and crop adaptation. Since joining the Crop Trust in 2016, Dr. Kilian has led major international initiatives, including the Crop Wild Relatives Project, the Templeton Pre‑Breeding Project, and the BOLD Project, collaborating with partners worldwide to strengthen the use of biodiversity in breeding for climate resilience. He serves on several international advisory boards, chairs the Wheat Initiative’s Expert Working Group on Germplasm Conservation, and contributes to teaching and capacity‑building activities globally.