Dr. Cullis is the Francis Hobart Herrick Professor of Biology at Case Western Reserve University, where he also serves as Director of the Biotechnology Entrepreneurship Master’s Program. He has a BSc from the University College of Rhodesia, an MSc in Biophysics and a PhD in Genetics from the University of East Anglia. Prior to joining CWRU he spent 14 years at the John Innes Institute, UK. His research is focused in two areas, one on the understanding the rapid genomic variation in flax under stress growth environments, and the other is developing a wild legume (marama bean, Tylosema esculentum) into a crop for resource poor farmers in Southern Africa. He served for two years as a program director at the National Science Foundation (for the Plant Genome Research Program) and has recently published a textbook on Plant Genomics.