Borderless Innovation; The changing face of Horticulture

Prof Neena Mitter is the founding Director of both the QAAFI Centre for Horticultural Science and the Australian Research Council Industrial Transformational Research HUB for Sustainable Crop Protection at The University of Queensland (UQ). The Centre of Horticultural Science, which constitutes over 70 core staff and students and champions over $37 Million worth of research projects, is collectively committed to developing the horticulture of tomorrow. As Director Neena purposely oversees that the three major research themes of the Centre; ‘horticulture crop breeding and agronomy’, ‘plant protection’ and ‘emerging technologies’, are carefully networked across multiple regional Centre locations and that they operate in close collaboration with industry, growers and government, to boost innovation, productivity and economic growth.
Neena’s career and passion for delivering real world outcomes has been recognised with honours including Fellowship to Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering, a Young Scientist Award from the Prime Minister of India, aQueensland International Fellowship and a Gates Grand Challenges Explorations Award and Women in Technology Outstanding Life Sciences Award. Neena is continually driven by the realisation of agriculture’s significance in shaping the world, economically, socially, environmentally and politically. Her high impact science and exceptional industry engagement has led to commercially focused innovations: namely 'BioClay for crop protection', 'Nanovaccines for animal health', and ‘Clonal propagation of avocado using plant stem cells’. Her incomparable collaboration and industry commitment has awarded her directorship of ARC Industrial Transformational Research HUB for Sustainable Crop Protection so she can continue to bridge the gap between fundamental and applied science and place Australia squarely on the world stage as a provider of a non-toxic, non-GM, ecologically sustainable Ag-Nano innovation. Her world’s first avocado tissue culture technology has the disruptive power to meet the growing global demand for new plants, will smash the 2022 backlog of supply and demand. Neena has served as an invited member on the Federal Government’s Decadal Plan for Agriculture and was invited to the OECD summit to develop policy and risk assessment guidelines on RNA based pesticides. She is an active Deputy member of the National Leadership Council on Cultural Diversity (www.leadership...) liaises within its business, government, universities and civil society membership. Neena is highly and consistently sought after to present at internationally hosted Forums such as Nature conferences and the World Science Festival.