Rosa Jauregui

Rosa Jauregui earned a BS in Biological Sciences from the University of Buenos Aires specializing in plant genetics; later she earned a Master´s degree in Horticulture & Agronomy at the University of Californa-Davis followed by a PhD in Plant Breeding at Texas A&M University. For five years she was the Breeding and Research Lead at a private forage seed company in Argentina working on temperate grasses, legumes, and other forage species.

Currently, she is the Tropical Forages Breeder at the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT. The breeding and research focus is on the tropical grasses Urochloa humidicola, interspecific Urochloa and Megathyrsus maximus. The aim of these programs is to develop improved pastures through higher biomass production and forage quality, that can increase farm productivity (more milk and/or meat) while reducing the environmental impact of the livestock operations through sustainable intensification and climate change adaptation and mitigation. The end goal of these breeding programs is to realize livelihood and environmental benefits through the improvement of tropical forages in Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa and Asia, with an emphasis on smallholder crop-livestock-tree systems.