Principal Investigator

Mark Tester

Professor, Plant Science; Associate Director, Center for Desert Agriculture

Research Interests: Salinity tolerance, Ion transport, Crop science, Plant physiology

Research Scientists

Damien Lightfoot

Research Scientist​​

Research Interests: Plant molecular biology, Bioinformatics, Plant physiology, Genomics

Fouad Lemtiri-Chlieh

Research Scientist

Research Interests: Electrophysiology, Sodium transport, Signal transduction pathways

Magdalena Julkowska

Research Scientist

Research Interests: Salinity tolerance, Root architecture, Plant Architecture, High throughput phenotyping

Rita Bartossek

Research Scientist

Research Interests: Biotechnology, metagenomics as tool for analysis of novel enzymes of complex communities, microbial ecology, comparative genomics, next generation sequencing, adaptation to extreme environments in plants

Ryan Lefers

Agriculture Engineer

Research Interests: Food/water/energy nexus, controlled environment agriculture, saltwater-based agriculture, aquaponics, horticulture lighting, circular agriculture systems

Sonia Negrao

Research Scientist

Vanessa Melino

Research Scientist

Research Interests: Plant physiology, Plant nutrition, Salinity tolerance, Root architecture, Ion transport

Yung Shwen Ho

Research Scientist

Research Interests: Plant genomics, Bioinformatics, Big Data Visualization, Computational Biology

Postdoctoral Fellows

Bo Li

Postdoctoral Fellow​

Research Interests: Bioinformatics, Anion Transport, Plant molecular biology

David Jarvis

Post-doctoral fellow ​

Research Interests: Salinity tolerance, Adaptation, Genomics, Biotechnology

Dongryung Lee

Postdoctoral Fellow

Research Interests: Salinity tolerance

Elodie Rey

Postdoctoral Fellow

Research Interests: Crops, Genomics, Transcriptomic, polyploidy, Domestication, stress resillience

Gordon Wellman

Post-Doctoral Fellow

Research Interests: Plant Abiotic stress tolerance, Transcriptomic, Genome sequencing, Salinity, Biotechnology

Moonsun Hwang

Research Interests: Molecular biology, Biochemistry

Octavio Salazar

​Postdoctoral Fellow

Research Interests: Salinity tolerance, Halophytes, Tissue Tolerance, Saponins

Sandra Schmöckel

Research Interests: Salinity tolerance, Ion transport, Crop science, Barley, Plant Science

Shawkat Ali

Research Interests: Salinity tolerance, Signalling, Genetic engineering

Yveline Pailles

​Postdoctoral Fellow

Research Interests: Plant genetics, Plant physiology, Molecular biology, Crop improvement, Salinity tolerance in tomato plants, Wild relatives of tomato, Galapagos tomatoes

PhD Students

Clara Stanschewski

Ph.D. Student

Research Interests: Plant genetics, Plant Phenotyping, Genome-Wide Association studies, Genotype x environment interactions, Plant domestication, Climate change

Mashael D. Alqahtani

Research Interests: Plant physiology, Genetic engineering, Molecular biology

Mitchell Morton

Research Interests: Plant physiology, Salinity tolerance, Plant genetics, Molecular biology, Crop improvement, Salinity tolerance in tomato plants, Wild relatives of tomato, Galapagos tomatoes

Nadia Al-Tamimi

Research Interests: Salinity tolerance, Molecular biology, Plant genomics

Nathaly Ortiz

Ph.D. Student

Research Interests: Grafting, salinity tolerance, tomatoes, polyploids

Nouf Alshareef

Research Interests: Abiotic Stress, Salt Stress, Heat Stress, Transcription Factors, Gene Regulatory Network

Masters Students

Arne Scheu

Ms Student
Research Group: Mark Tester​​​

Eunje Kim

Masters Student
Research Group: Mark Tester

Hana Kanee

Ms Student
Research Group: Mark Tester

Jose Otero

Visiti​ng Student
Research Group: Mark Tester

Savannah Stark

Visiti​ng Student
Research Group: Mark Tester

Research Group Staff

Bhagya Girjia

Lab Support Technician

Research Interests: Women's health, Cardiovascular & Neuro physiology

Dinara Utarbayeva

Greenhouse Technician

Research Interests: Crossing, grafting tomatoes, germination and propagating coarctata rice

Fangfang Wu

Lab Technician

Gabriele Fiene

Research Specialist

Research Interests: Salinity tolerance, Domestication, Field trails, Crop wild relatives

Hongwei Ren

Greenhouse Technician

Research Interests: Salinity tolerance, tomato

Igor Silva

The Salt Lab coordinator

Jyoti Dubey

Greenhouse Technician

Research Interests: Salinity tolerance, Applied molecular and cellular biology, Plant molecular biology

Khadija Zemmouri

Greenhouse Technician​

Lijun Li

Greenhouse Technician​

Research Interests: Salinity tolerance

Lila Ali Aldakheel

Greenhouse Technician

Noha O. Saber

Lab Technician

Research Interests: Salinity tolerance, Molecular biology

Rameesha M. Parambil

​Lab Technician at the Salt Lab
Research Group: Mark Tester

Shireen Hammoud

Lab Technician

Research Interests: Salinity tolerance

Sundus Bukhari

Lab Technician

Research Interests: Salinity tolerance