The Philippines
July 19, 2011
After a global search, IRRI is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Eero A. J. Nissilä as its Head of Plant Breeding, Genetics, and Biotechnology (PBGB) and leader of GRISP Theme 2: Accelerating the development, delivery, and adoption of improved rice varieties.
Eero hails from Finland where he started his career in the mid 1980s as a research assistant for the Agricultural Research Centre of Finland.
By 1990, he had his M.Sc. in Plant Breeding at the University of Helsinki. He then went onto complete his doctoral degree in Agriculture and Forestry (Plant Breeding) at the same University with his thesis: ‘Relationships between phenotype and genotype-environment interactions and their influence on yield in highly adapted barley germplasm’.
For about the last ten years, Eero has been working as the Director of Breeding Programmes at Boreal Plant Breeding Ltd., while concurrently undertaking lecturing at the University of Helsinki, Department of Applied Biology / Plant Breeding. Prior to this, he worked as an Associate Scientist in International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (IPGRI) in Malaysia and Italy; and as a barley breeder, also at Boreal Plant Breeding Ltd.
Eero is due to start work at IRRI in late September 2011 and will provide strategic and operational leadership on all aspects of rice varietal improvement research in IRRI. Dr. Achim Dobermann, IRRI’s deputy director general for research, said that “Dr. Nissilä will provide leadership for transforming rice breeding programs towards more targeted product development, which will allow us to develop new rice varieties faster and more efficiently through applying new breeding strategies and tools”.
As the global leader for GRISP Theme 2 and in collaboration with others, he will provide the overall leadership for accelerating the development of new rice varieties and hybrids in all major rice-growing environments, with a particular emphasis on new, targeted product development pipelines that utilize molecular breeding approaches and networks. He will also be responsible for implementing these breeding programs in Asia, including overseeing all staff and other resources in IRRI’s Plant Breeding, Genetics and Biotechnology (PBGB) Division.
“For a lifetime breeder to work at IRRI with a global plant breeding activity is a once in a lifetime job opportunity,” Dr. Nissilä said. “I find it particularly interesting to work in a cross-cultural environment and with local and international top experts coming from various countries. IRRI’s overall targets and values motivate me heavily – especially with the global scene in which plant breeding will probably, more than ever, have an importance in feeding the global population.”
“After being in business-driven private breeding for most of my career to date,” he added, “I believe that at IRRI we can exploit much of the strategic targeting approaches used in commercial product-driven breeding programmes as well as ways to integrate new breeding technologies and methods into breeding”.
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