Sarah Cochran-Murray is a PhD candidate working with CucCAP Plant Pathologist Dr. Lina Quesada-Ocampo in the Vegetable Pathology Lab at North Carolina State University’s Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology, as well as the NC Plant Sciences Initiative.
CucCAP Scientists
The CucCAP team is a diverse group of scientists including plant breeders, plant genomics specialists, plant pathologists, crop production specialists, and agricultural economics specialists. Early career scientists on the CucCAP team include both MS and PhD graduate students, Post doctoral researchers, research technicians, and other technical staff assisting the CucCAP project’s principal investigators.
Early Career Scientist Spotlight | Usha Bhatta
Usha Bhatta is a Post Doctoral Research Scientist working with CucCAP Plant Pathologist Dr. Lina Quesada-Ocampo in the Vegetable Pathology Lab at North Carolina State University, Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology and the NC Plant Sciences Initiative. Usha’s hometown is Mahendranagar, Nepal and she focus of her work in the Quasada-Ocampo lab is Plant pathology, genomics, integrated disease management.
Early Career Scientist Spotlight | Savannah Beyer
Savannah Beyer is a member of the Weng lab at the USDA ARS Vegetable Crops Research Unit (VCRU) in the Department of Plant and Agroecology Sciences at the University of Wisconsin – Madison.
CucCAP Scientists present 2024 update
The CucCAP teams presented recent progress to project stakeholders. The meeting was hosted by the CucCAP melon breeding team at the USDA-ARS Research center in Salinas California.
Early Career Scientist Spotlight | Hunter Collins
As a Research Assistant and Field Technician in Lina Quesada’s Vegetable Pathology lab at NC State, Hunter Collins finds great value in helping to find methods to better manage diseases in vegetable crops.
Early Career Scientist Spotlight | Kelly Avila
Kelly Avila is a Post Doctoral Researcher and works with CucCAP Plant Pathologist Dr. Lina Quesada in the Vegetable Pathology Lab at NC State University. She chose to work in the Quasada lab because of the focus on Extension, integrated disease management, and genomics.
Early Career Scientist Spotlight | Gregory Inzinna
Gregory Inzinna hopes to identify resistance genes in Cucurbita and provide the seed and vegetable industry with resistant breeding lines and markers they can use in their work.
Early Career Scientist Spotlight | Xuebo Zhao
Xuebo Zhao is a postdoctoral researcher in the Fei Lab at Boyce Thompson Institute. The focus of Xuebo’s work is genomics. Her research is to unravel the evolution of Cucurbits using pan-genome.
