Carlos Iglesias

Bio

Carlos is the Director of the Plant Breeding Consortium at North Carolina State University, and a Professor in Horticultural Science since January 2020. Carlos grew up in a small farming community in SW Uruguay, and he is part of an extended family of farmers and cooks.

Education:
MBA: Food and Agribusiness, Indiana University, 2014
MSc: Ag Economy, Purdue
University 2014
PhD: Plant Breeding and Cytogenetics, Iowa State University, 1989
MSc: Plant Breeding and Cytogenetics, Iowa State University, 1987
BSc: Agronomy, University of Uruguay, 1983

Work Experience: Carlos’ experience in both, the public and private sectors also include the following roles:
• Global Cassava Germplasm Improvement Lead at CIAT (1989-98);
• Head of Hybrid Breeding and Seed Production at Weaver Popcorn (1998-2012);
• Head of Corn R&D LATAM (2012-15) and Head Wheat R&D and Seed Business North America (2015-2020)

He has directly worked or managed programs in different species (corn, cassava, popcorn, wheat, peas); and has experience in more developed agriculture production systems (North America, Brazil/Argentina), as well as production in less developed regions of the world (Sub-Saharan Africa). He has been a consultant for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in Root and Tuber Crops projects in Africa, since 2015. He has also served as a scientific advisor to INARI (2020 to date) and Avalo AI (2021- to date); he is a member of the NAREEE Specialty Crops Committee (2021-23); and a Fulbright Specialist since 2022.

His passion is to find ways to effectively and radically reduced nutrition related diseases in our country (diabetes and cardiovascular diseases); and help African countries address the upcoming challenge of feeding 4 billion people by the end of this century on a continent with soils that lack appropriate fertility.

Most of his publications relate to the topic of cassava breeding and genetics. He is the creator and coordinator of the International Plant Breeding Seminar Series at NCSU, which is in its 4th cycle this semester. He has built synergies with several public and private breeding and genetic programs throughout his career.

Recent publications:
H. Ceballos, C. Rojanaridpiched, C. Phumichai, P. Kittipadakul, C. Iglesias, and V.E. Gracen. 2019. Excellence in cassava breeding: perspectives for the future. Crop Breeding, Genetics, and Genomics https://doi.org/10.20900/cbgg20200008.

H. Ceballos, C. Hershey, C. Iglesias, and X. Zhang. 2021. Fifty years of a public cassava breeding program: evolution of breeding objectives, methods, and decision-making processes. Theoretical and Applied Genetics (2021) 134:2335–2353. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00122-021-03852-9.