Q & A with Ioannis Droutsas

Back in February, we shared Q&As with two of our team members, Amogh Joshi and Alex Olenskyj. Today we're talking with Ioannis Droutsas, one of our postdoctoral researchers working with the modeling side of GEMINI.

Please introduce yourself: who are you, where are you from, and what is your educational/professional background?

ID: My name is Ioannis Droutsas and I’m a postdoctoral researcher at the Plant Simulation lab of GEMINI.I’m originally from Greece, where I completed my MEng in Environmental Engineering. In my home country, I worked as a Waste Manager, dealing with the loading, transportation and disposal of hazardous industrial waste. In 2016, I moved to England to undertake a PhD study at the University of Leeds. My research was focused on modeling the effects of climate and air pollution on wheat growth, development and yield. Following the completion of my PhD, I worked as a Research Fellow in the same institute on the development of a crop yield forecasting system for Africa. Finally, in September 2022, I moved to the US to become a part of the great GEMINI team!

What is your role within GEMINI?

ID: In GEMINI, I’m working on the development of a 3D plant model for simulations of crop growth and phenological progression at daily time step. The model is part of the Helios framework and the goal is to build an algorithm that reproduces the observed pattern of growth and development for field-grown common bean, cowpea and sorghum varieties. I collaborate with GEMINI’s Breeding and Sensing teams to incorporate into the model their expertise in data collection, processing and modeling, as well as plant biology and genetics.

How did you end up working with GEMINI and what interests you most about this project?

ID: My scientific background is in the field of crop modeling, which occupied me for the last six years prior to moving to UC Davis. Last year, the GEMINI team was looking for a crop modeler to join their project and I’m grateful to have been selected to fulfill this role in a fantastic team at a world-leading institute. For me, the most interesting (and most challenging) part of the project is the attempt to couplea 3D structural plant model with the physiological and developmental processes of plants. In other words, we’re trying to reproduce in a 3-dimensional computer simulation how plants grow and developover time, all the way from their emergence to harvest time.

Is there anything particularly exciting you are working on now or in the near future that you would like to share?

ID: My current work focuses on understanding the genetic mechanisms that drive the time to flowering for common beans grown under different climatic conditions. I’m working with a large data set of various field-grown common bean genotypes with the goal to disentangle how genes and weather drive the observed variation in flowering time. Simply put, the attempt is to understand why different bean genotypes flower at different times within the same crop season.

What do you like to do outside of work (personal hobbies and interests)?

ID: The last three years of my life have been very blessed, since I welcomed my two daughters into the world. My free time is mostly focused around them, either by playing together and having fun or by rocking them to sleep at night (which is not that much fun...). Sometimes we go on walks or play at the park or we spend time with extended family and friends, which is great.