Yun-Ching Tsai

Yun-Ching (Wendy) Tsai

Yun-Ching Tsai (Wendy) is a graduate school student at the University of Georgia (UGA) from Taiwan. She is a fourth year Ph. D. student studying Plant Pathology. She obtained her bachelor’s degree in Taiwan and her master’s degree at UGA – Tifton, both in Plant Pathology. While completing her master’s degree, her focus and projects were also in peanut. After the completion of her master’s degree at UGA, she returned to Taiwan for three years to gain work experience.

Wendy found her passion for agriculture and plant pathology during high school. Courses in science, especially Microbiology, are what sparked her interest. She chose to attend UGA because she felt strongly that they provided her with good resources and allowed her to study a very important crop to the state of Georgia. Because she had such a great experience at UGA with her master’s degree, she was thrilled to come back to pursue her Ph. D. and continue to study peanuts.

During her bachelor’s degree program, she completed an internship with a university in Taiwan. The duration was 3 months, and she was able to grow her knowledge and skills in laboratory work, concentrating in molecular biology.

The project Wendy is currently working on involves peanut stem rot disease. She is co-advised by Dr. Soraya Bertioli and Dr. Tim Brenneman. The primary focus in this project, is utilizing wild peanut to improve disease resistance. Peanut does not have much genetic diversity, so there are not many resources to use for resistance improvement. To find genes for resistance they start by screening germplasm using a greenhouse assay which Wendy developed during the first and second year of her Ph. D. With the wild peanut varieties, they have discovered novel sources resistance to the disease and are working it into the cultivars that are commonly used. In addition, she works to identify the gene segments serving as trackable markers that are correlated to the resistance to be used in future breeding efforts.

After graduation, Wendy plans to find a post-doctoral opportunity with either an industry corporation or in academia.

by Caraline Coombs, student assistant, UGA Peanut Team Media