Caixia Lan, from China, earned her PhD in 2010 in crop genetics and breeding from the Institute of Crop Science at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences. From 2011 until 2018, she focused on adult plant resistance to wheat rusts as a scientist with the Global Wheat Program at CIMMYT in Mexico. In 2018, she became a full professor at Huazhong Agricultural University in Hubei Province, China, where she will conduct research on wheat breeding and rust genetics.