Stephen Kresovich

Robert and Lois Coker Trustees Endowed Chair of Genetics
Plant and Environmental Sciences Department, Public Service Activities

Office: 318 Biosystems Research Complex
Phone: 864-656-1194

Email: SKRESOV@clemson.edu

Educational Background

Ph.D. Agronomy (Crop Physiology and Genetics)
The Ohio State University 1982

M.S. Agronomy
Texas A&M University 1977

A.B. Biology
Washington and Jefferson College 1974

Profile

Dr. Kresovich has worked at Clemson University since 2013 as the Robert and Lois Coker Trustees Chair of Genetics in the Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences. In addition, Dr. Kresovich serves as director of the Advanced Plant Technology Program and the South Carolina Crop Improvement Association. These programs are charged to integrate advances in breeding, genetics, and genomics to solve problems in agriculture, the environment, and human health. In complement, he uses this foundation to link regional, national, and international programs addressing global food security and stakeholder benefits.

In 2019, Dr. Kresovich also re-established his connection with Cornell University as director of the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Crop Improvement. Its mission is to develop, deploy, and evaluate tools, technologies, and methods aimed at delivering staple crops that can increase yield and stability under expected climate change, enhance nutrition, and show greater resistance to pests and diseases. The Innovation Lab has established a network of scientists on the ground in Latin America, Africa, and Asia to create enduring solutions that can eliminate hunger globally. Also, Dr. Kresovich is a professor in the School of Integrative Plant Science in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

Over his almost 50-year career, Dr. Kresovich has demonstrated significant leadership and management capabilities in the academic and governmental research sectors. From 2009-2011, he served as the Vice President for Research and Graduate Education at the University of South Carolina. In this position, Dr. Kresovich was responsible for leading both the University of South Carolina’s system-wide research enterprise (approximately $240 million annually) and graduate school efforts.

At Cornell University, Dr. Kresovich served in numerous leadership positions. These included Director of the Institute for Genomic Diversity, the Director of the Institute for Biotechnology, and the Vice Provost for Life Sciences. As Vice Provost (2004-2009), Dr. Kresovich was responsible for providing university-wide leadership for the Life Sciences Initiative, at that time the institution’s largest academic undertaking in its history with a total investment of more than $650 million. He was responsible for coordinated strategic planning, fundraising, hiring of faculty, planning for new buildings, developing shared core research facilities, and supporting educational and training activities based on Cornell’s comprehensive investments in the life sciences. In 2007, Dr. Kresovich also served as the Interim Vice Provost for Research with oversight and advocacy responsibilities for all of Cornell’s research efforts (approximately $600 million that year).

Prior to joining the Cornell faculty, he served for eleven years as Laboratory Director at two U.S. National Genetic Resources Program genebanks at Geneva, New York (1987-93) and Griffin, Georgia (1993-98). Dr. Kresovich received his A.B. in biology from Washington and Jefferson College, M.S. in agronomy at Texas A&M University, and Ph.D. in crop science (physiology and genetics) from The Ohio State University in 1982. Following graduation, he conducted research in crop breeding and biotechnology at Battelle Memorial Institute and Texas A&M University.

Dr. Kresovich’s internationally recognized research focuses on conservation genetics and improvement of crop plants including sorghum, sugar cane, and maize. Dr. Kresovich has more than 200 peer-reviewed publications and has developed a number of commercially released hybrids and germplasm of sugar cane and sorghum. Dr. Kresovich is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Crop Science Society of America.

Dr. Kresovich currently maintains connections with the National Genetic Resources Program, serving as a member of the National Genetic Resources Advisory Council, appointed by the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture in 2020. He also is a member of the advisory committee of the Southern Regional Plant Introduction Station at Griffin and the national Sorghum Crop Germplasm Committee. In 2022, Dr. Kresovich was elected Chair of the Board of Directors of the DivSeek International Network. Dr. Kresovich serves on the Working Group on Plant Genetic Resources Management of the African Seed and Biotechnology Platform. In addition, Dr. Kresovich has served as a consultant for the Crop Trust. He also is a member of the advisory committee for the USDA, ARS SorghumBase and Breeding Insight initiatives.

Besides research collaborations in South America (with EMBRAPA in Brazil), Africa (with IER in Mali, INRAN in Niger, and BECA in Kenya), and Asia (ICAR in India), Dr. Kresovich has extensive experience in leadership roles in international research and development. From 2008-2016, he served as an advisor to the Tata-Cornell Agriculture-Nutrition initiative in India. From 1997-2007, he represented the U.S. Agency for International Development as Scientific Liaison Officer for the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (now Bioversity) and for system-wide Genetic Resources Conservation for the International Agricultural Research Centers (CGIAR). In the 1998, Kresovich spent time at ICRISAT planning its internationally recognized Applied Genomics Laboratory. He contributed to the vision and goals of the CGIAR Generation Challenge Programme.

Dr. Kresovich also worked with Dr. Eric Danquah in the early establishment of the West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement. More recently, Dr. Kresovich serves as a member of the U.S. State Department program “Vision for Adapted Crops and Soils” (VACS) Breeding Leadership and Capacity Development committees. In complement he serves on the West African Center for Crop Improvement VACS Steering Committee. Also, he is a member of the Board of Directors for the Centro Agronómico Tropical de Investigación y Enseñanza (CATIE) in Costa Rica. In 2024, he became a member of the USAID Feed the Future World Coffee Research Advisory Board.

Dr. Kresovich also has been a member of advisory board for the Baker Endowment at Iowa State University (2009-2016) and the Tufts University Innovation Institute (2012-2014). From 2012-2014, Dr. Kresovich was a scientific advisor for the United Sorghum Checkoff Program.

With his interest in crop conservation and use, he also has served on the Board of Directors for the Carolina Gold Rice Foundation. He also was an initial partner with, and now serves as a scientific advisor for Carolina Seed Systems, an agricultural/genetic technology company serving crop agriculture in the southeastern U.S.

Research Interests

Tremendous progress has been made to advance our understanding of crop genome organization, variation, and evolution, particularly as it relates to potential discovery and exploitation of useful genic or genotypic diversity in plants. Critical to this progress has been advances in molecular biology/genetics, genomics, and computational biology as well as thoughtful applications of the theories of evolutionary biology and plant breeding. It is well recognized that a crop genome is a dynamic unit whose organization and variation has been molded by evolutionary processes and human intervention.

Dr. Kresovich’s research objectives are: (1) to identify and validate genes impacting evolution, domestication or crop improvement; (2) to characterize and understand the relationship between DNA sequence variation and desirable phenotypes; (3) to characterize molecular and phenotypic diversity in natural populations, landraces, and elite germplasm; (4) to develop and test strategies to efficiently discover, conserve, and use variation in natural populations and genebank collections; and (5) to provide genetic tools, technologies, and methods to support national and international plant breeding programs.

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