Julie Sardos

Julie is a French national who joined the Alliance, then Bioversity International, in 2012. She is based in Montpellier and she works on the characterization of Banana germplasm. She is specifically in charge of the molecular characterization of the accessions conserved in the Musa Germplasm International Transit Centre (ITC).

Since 2016, Julie leads collecting missions, notably to Papua New Guinea and the Pacific Islands, that enabled the discovery of nearly 150 new banana landraces. Since 2019, she is involved in the characterization of on-farm banana diversity, in Papua New Guinea and in Vietnam.

Started in 2017, Julie is also co-chair of the Diversity Thematic Group of MusaNet.

Julie obtained a PhD at the Agronomic School Montpellier SupAgro (France) in 2008, working on the agrobiodiversity of Roots and Tubers Crops in Vanuatu (Pacific Islands). She then held a post-doctoral position at the University of the Azores (Portugal) where she was running the molecular botany lab.

Currently, her research focuses in using the latest genomic tools applied to germplasm characterization to better understand the mechanisms involved in clonal crops diversification and to improve the conservation and use of this germplasm.