Yesenia I. Vélez Negrón

ECaFSS Scholar since: January 2017

Education: B.S. Crop Protection – UPRM

Expected Graduation Date: May 2020

Research: Yesenia I. Vélez Negrón has actively participated in investigations of Phytopathology areas, as fungus, oomycetes and bacterias, being advised by Dr. Lydia Rivera and Ing. Lorena Simbaña. The investigation project centers in the evaluation of possible causal agents related to the decay of pineapple’s heart. Thus, her objective is to study the bacterial populations present in the symtoms of the decay to identify if any are pathogenic as it was the case of the oomycete Phytophthora nicotianae.

Internships: During these last two years, Yesenia has participated in internships with USDA-ARS. The first one was in 2017 at Tropical Agricultural Research Station, Mayagüez P.R., where she worked under the supervision of Dr. Hugo Cuevas acquiring experience in identifying sources of resistance to the anthracnose in diverse sorghum germplasm. Meanwhile, her second experience was under the supervision of Dr. Christopher Clarke during summer 2018 at the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center – Genetic Improvement of Fruits and Vegetable Lab in Maryland. Her job consisted in the optimization of protocols of DNA and RNA extraction, with the objective of studying the molecular interactions of potatoes with the pathogen Streptomyces.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Post comment