Kathryn Turner, U.S., is currently the Crop Protection Geneticist at The Land Institute in Kansas where she first became interested in plant breeding as an intern in 2005. Today, she researches plant pathogens and disease defenses in perennial grain crops under development. In earning her MS (2012) and her PhD (2015) from the University of Minnesota, she worked with the Ug99 stem rust race family, Fusarium head blight, and leaf rust, utilizing techniques like association mapping to facilitate durable genetic resistance.