M Anto Conti

Postdoctoral Fellow
Plant and Environmental Sciences Department, PeeDee Research and Education Center

Office:
Phone: 864-705-5746

Email: conti3@clemson.edu

Educational Background

Ph.D. Plant and Environmental Sciences
Clemson University 2026

B.S. Agronomic Engineering
Universidad Nacional del Noroeste de la provincia de Buenos Aires (UNNOBA) 2022

Profile

I am originally from Argentina, where I got my Bachelor’s degree in Agronomic Engineering at UNNOBA. During my last two years of undergrad and after graduation, I worked in the private sector at major companies such as Bayer and Corteva.
I came to Clemson University in the Fall of 2022 to pursue my doctorate degree in Plant and Environmental Sciences under Dr. Richard Boyles, with a focus in Plant Breeding and Genetics. My dissertation project focused on the antimicrobial (AM) activity of sorghum grain, the secondary metabolites involved, and the underlying genetics of sorghum grain enhancement for poultry feed. After graduating in the spring of 2026, I started as a Postdoctoral Fellow in the same lab.

Publications

Conti MA, Ballén-Taborda C, Broeckling CD and Boyles RE (2026) Untargeted metabolomics of mature sorghum [Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench] grain reveals metabolites associated with antimicrobial activity against Clostridium perfringens. Front. Plant Sci. 17:1821654. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2026.1821654

Conti MA, Ballén-Taborda C, Thomas ML, Baskins K, Caughman W, Justice-Alucho CH, King T, Crozier D, Rooney WL, Arguelles-Ramos M, Jiang X, Benson AK and Boyles RE (2026) Genetic dissection of sorghum [Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench] grain antimicrobial activity against Clostridium perfringens and its relationship with grain composition and field performance. Front. Plant Sci. 17:1754365. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2026.1754365

Boyles, R. E., Ballén-Taborda, C., Conti, M. A., Sapkota, S., Boatwright, J. L., Kresovich, S., & Brenton, Z. W. (2026). Tandem genomic selection with independent culling to improve sorghum hybrid adaptation to the eastern United States. Crop Science, 66, e70249. https://doi.org/10.1002/csc2.70249

Arlyn Ackerman, Maria A. Conti, Andrew Disharoon, Anthony Wenndt, William Caughman, Richard Boyles. (2025). The organizational trends of the grain metabolome in the sorghum association panel, Plant Physiology and Biochemistry, Volume 229, Part A, 110311, ISSN 0981-9428, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.plaphy.2025.110311.

Links