María Fernanda Álvarez

María Fernanda Álvarez is the director of the Crops for nutrition and health research area of the Alliance between Bioversity International and CIAT and the rice program leader. She leads the efforts for sustainable intensification of the rice crop, contributing to food security and climate change mitigation and adaptation. She holds a PhD. in agricultural science specializing in plant breeding, she leads the hybrid rice consortium for Latin America, where she has been successful in delivering commercial hybrids for the region. She also has several achievements in implementing methodologies to increase genetic gains in the different breeding pipelines of the rice program. 

Objective 2: Understand the carbon capture-related traits in the rice crop and develop Rice breeding lines with a high capacity for carbon capture.  

Subareas: Root physiology, Rice breeding, best agronomical practices for carbon capture.