Interview with Professor Pamela Ronald

I met up with Professor Pam Ronald from UC Davis in Dublin yesterday for the Alchemist Aperitif cafe discussion, part of the Euroscience Open Forum.

Pam is the author, with her husband Raoul Adamchak, of the ground-breaking book Tomorrow’s Table: Organic Farming, Genetics, and the Future of Food, and is Professor in the department of Plant Pathology and the Genome Center at the University of California, Davis, where she and her colleagues were recipients of the 2008 USDA National Research Initiative Discovery Award for their work on flood tolerant rice. She also serves as Director of Grass Genetics at the Joint Bioenergy Institute.

Pam Ronald (center) in Dublin

I had visited Professor Ronald at her home in California last summer, so was delighted to hear she would be coming to Dublin, where she is speaking today Friday 13th as part of The Great Debate: The Battle to Feed a Changing Planet.

She kindly agreed to a short interview in which I asked her about her work, and the future role genetic engineering can play in sustainable agriculture, which you can listen to below:

Professor Pamela Ronald in her lab in UC Davis last year