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My name is Mitch Tuinstra. I'm a professor
of plant breeding and genetics in the Department

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of Agronomy at Purdue University. This is
why I'm a plant breeder. Tuinstra actually

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has a name and a meaning and the meaning of
the word Tuinstra is from the garden. I grew

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up in a greenhouse production business in
southwest Michigan. Many of my relatives,

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my grandparents, and my extended family are involved in plant production. So I guess it

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is really natural that I have this love of
plants sort of in my DNA practically, in my

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family name and heritage. I've been a part
of the Agronomy Department at Purdue for a

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couple of decades. I was first here as a graduate
student in the early 1990s. I moved away for

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ten years and joined the faculty at Kansas
State University and in 2007 I rejoined the

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faculty at Purdue. I am involved in research
and teaching in plant breeding and genetics.

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I have a 70 percent appointment in the Department
of Agronomy in teaching and in research. I

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advise undergraduate students, I mentor graduate
students, and I coordinate and lead research

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programs in corn and sorghum crop improvement.
Really my research boils down, in its simplest

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form, to translation. How do we take the basic
understanding of science, as it relates to

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genetics, biochemistry, and physiology, and
take those basic principals and translate

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those in developing new cultivars that are
better adapted to stressful environments?

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So my research program really focuses on developing
climate resilient cultivars of corn and sorghum.

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But in recent years, as there has been greater
and greater concern about climate variability

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and potential for climate change, not just
in the United States but globally, I've found

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that my research program has become more international in scope. I expect that looking forward that

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that will probably increase. As there is more
and more interest in, not just in the United

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States but countries around the world, about
trying to adapt their agricultural systems

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to better be more resilient to the types of
conditions that we are seeing today.