Meet our speakers
Tammy Kimbler
Tammy Kimbler comes to agriculture through childhood, the arts, and food. She grew up on a ranch in California and later earned degrees in theater, film, and television production. Before joining The Land Institute, she worked on the brand experience team at General Mills’ Cascadian Farm Organic, where she led the launch of the first nationally released breakfast cereal made with Kernza® perennial grain. At The Land Institute, she built and leads the Communications program, translating scientific innovations, bold ideas, and urgent issues to grow the global perennial agriculture movement. Tammy also oversees the fundraising Development team, helping inspire deep personal investment in The Land Institute’s work to transform agriculture, feed people, and heal the environment.
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Vikas Belamkar
Vikas Belamkar is a plant breeding and genetics scientist with over 10 years of experience in inbred and hybrid cultivar development and discovery breeding. He earned his undergraduate and MS degrees in Biotechnology from Visvesvaraya Institute of Technology (India) and Texas Tech University, and a PhD in Genetics from Iowa State University. He began his professional career at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln (UNL), where he held multiple roles, including Postdoctoral Research Associate, Research Assistant Professor, and Research Associate Professor. At UNL, he modernized the wheat breeding program by leveraging new tools (genomic selection, advanced statistical designs and analyses, genotyping‑by‑sequencing, etc.), led multiple aspects of hybrid wheat research, managed large‑scale genetic analyses, and mentored students and early‑career researchers. Vikas has authored or coauthored more than 38 peer‑reviewed publications and contributed to the development of four new cultivars.
Vikas joined Corteva Agriscience in 2021 as a Wheat Breeding Scientist, Spring Wheat Breeder, where he is building and managing a spring wheat hybrid breeding program focused on delivering exceptional products with increased genetic gain to North American growers.
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Dr. Aaron Lorenz
Dr. Aaron Lorenz is a professor in the Department of Agronomy and Plant Genetics, University of Minnesota. Dr. Lorenz received his PhD in Plant breeding and Plant Genetics from the University of Wisconsin, MS in Plant Breeding from Iowa State University, and B.S. from the University of Minnesota. He has been leading a soybean breeding and genetics program at the University of Minnesota since 2015 where he strives to combine research on breeding methodology and the genetic control of complex traits with an applied cultivar development program. Food-type and other specialty-type soybeans are a particular target of the breeding program. Dr. Lorenz teaches introductory plant genetics and breeding to undergraduates, and advanced plant breeding to graduate students.
