Jose Maria Barrero

Jose completed his Doctorate in the Miguel Hernandez University, Spain, where he worked in leaf development and salt-resistance using the model plant Arabidopsis. He came to Australia in 2006 to join the CSIRO seed dormancy group as a Postdoctoral fellow, becoming Team Leader in 2015. Jose has been studying the molecular and environmental mechanisms controlling seed dormancy using a variety of plant species including Arabidopsis, Brachypodium, barley and wheat. Understanding seed dormancy is important as low dormancy of commercial wheat varieties is a key factor contributing to pre-harvest sprouting in wheat, a major problem in agriculture. He has also lead projects that aimed to deliver tools for hybrid wheat production. Recently Jose has joined a new group at CSIRO that is dedicated to the biotech improvement of cowpea for developing countries.