Heartland Plant Innovations’ Research Team

Elfadil Bashir, Research Scientist

Sabeen Asif, Research Assistant

Sabeen Asif joined HPI as a Research Assistant in 2017. She received her M.A. in Economics from Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan, Pakistan. Her greenhouse, lab, and experimental skills are a perfect match for several critical point of our DH production system. Her main duties include emasculation, pollination, hormonal treatment, embryo rescue, and wide crossing. In a previous role, she was responsible for initiating and implementing large scale field experiments with the goals of generating convincing evidence for policy decisions.

Mei Zhang, Research Assistant

Mei Zhang joined HPI in 2021 and has eight years of experience working with Doubled Haploid technology. Her responsibilities include embryo rescue, emasculation, pollination, and other lab and greenhouse work. Mei holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Industrial Management.

Aaron Ajax, Research Assistant

Aaron Ajax moved to Manhattan from San Diego in 2022 to support his wife going to graduate school at Kansas State University in Drama Therapy. Originally from a career in horticulture, Aaron found his way into Kansas agriculture and joined HPI in 2023. Some of his duties include emasculation, pollination, transplanting, planting, watering, fertilizing disease and pest control, soil management, harvesting, and threshing.

James Stapleton, Technician

James Stapleton joined HPI in 2020 and is responsible for all greenhouse and plant management. He received his Advanced Biotechnology Certificate from Manhattan Area Technical College.

Part-Time Staff

HPI routinely hires several technicians and part-time staff throughout the plant growing season to assist with planting, watering, harvesting, and threshing.