Professor of agronomy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
From to 2011, she was the 12th dean of the University 2006of Wisconsin’s College of Agricultural and Life Sciences and director of the Wisconsin Agricultural Experiment Station. From 2009 to 2010, she served as deputy and acting USDA undersecretary of research, education, and economics. Trained as a plant geneticist/breeder, crop varieties from her vegetable breeding programs at UW-Madison and Cornell University are now grown commercially and for subsistence on six continents under more than 60 commercial licenses.
