Keynote Speaker
Susan Brown is the Herman M. Cohn Professor of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell University and a faculty member in the sections of Horticulture and Plant Breeding and Genetics in the School of Integrative Plant Science. Susan leads the Cornell apple breeding program and, in addition to her research, has named eight sweet cherries, one tart cherry and four apple varieties, with the managed varieties SnapDragon™ and RubyFrost™ the most recent releases. Among her awards, Susan was a NY State Senate Woman of Distinction in 2014 and received the American Pomological Society’s Wilder Medal in 2016 for her contributions to Pomology.
While almost everyone enjoys apples, very few make the improvement of apples their life’s work. There are only three major university breeding programs that focus on apples, with Cornell one of these three. Susan will share some of the behind the scenes activities of improving this notable fruit. The complexity of “simple” genetic characteristics, such as fruit color, will be revealed using examples from other Cornell research. Susan will share her passion for apple improvement in a series of short stories and images. She hopes that when you enjoy apples in the future, you will appreciate the efforts of many researchers working collaboratively to achieve improvements never before imagined.