Welcome to Agronomix Jia Sun – Our New Genovix® Specialist
Welcome to Agronomix Software Jia Sun!
Introduction
Jia Sun, our latest Breeding Software Professional recently completed her PhD at University of Manitoba in Plant Breeding and Genetics. Jia is excited to be on our team and is already testifying how Genovix is changing the plant breeding world. One Genovix stand-out to her, amongst all others, is the relational nature of the system. Jia realizes how crucial it is in the plant breeding industry.
Jia’s Early Years
Jia was born and raised in Lanzhou, a city in north-western China. Although she grew up in the city, she had lots of opportunities to see and experience agricultural sciences. Firstly, through her father, a plant breeder and also her grandfather, an entomologist. Although she did not fully understand everything as a child, she still remembers how proud they were when they told her about their work.
A big moment came for Jia, when her father gave her a plant science “project”. When she about 7 years old, her dad showed her a seed germination test by giving her some canola seeds to grow on the balcony. For her, it was an exciting and magical moment to see little black seeds turn into seedlings.
Education
Jia attended the Gansu Agricultural University. Out of her curiosity for plants, she chose a Plant Biotechnology Major. It was at this point that her fathers’ work began to make sense to her and she was excited to learn more. After finishing her undergraduate degree, she moved to Canada and started her Masters degree program at the University of Saskatchewan. During the Masters program, she worked on developing early flowering flax verities with Dr Helen Booker. This allowed her to explore the fundamentals of plant breeding and genetics.
Right after completing her Masters degree, Jia began her PhD at the University of Manitoba. During this program, Jia worked to explore the potential of applying genome selection in Canola Breeding. This gave Jia more insight to breeding of different crop types. A very crucial knowledge and expertise that is needed to effectively support our clients. Jia says that she is very grateful for the journey so far and is excited for what lies ahead.
The Journey Ahead
The Journey Ahead for her begins with Agronomix. Jia has spent the last month at Agronomix learning the power and functionalities of Genovix. For Jia, the existence of Genovix in the plant breeding industry is revolutionary. She says this is because she sees how much Genovix can increase efficiency from small scale breeding, so much so that being a Genovix expert is one of her long term goals! Some other long-term goals that Jia holds is to be able to write and release new R packages that plant breeders need for data analysis and data visualization.
When Jia is not doing plant breeding stuff, she is spending a lot of time with her cat, Mochi. And other times, she spends it reading, journaling, painting and playing video games.
We are excited by the new R packages but also the new ideas and experience she brings. The challenge for us is to turn those ideas into innovations to help our clients.
Welcome Jia, the team at Agronomix Software is excited to have you on board!
