Maria Muñoz-Amatriain
Assistant Professor
C133 Plant Sciences
Maria.Munoz_Amatriain@colostate.edu
970-491-3691 office
Bio
Dr. Muñoz-Amatriain will join the Colorado State University faculty in February, 2019. She received her B.S. in Biology from the University of Salamanca (Spain), and her Ph.D. in Molecular and Cellular Biology from the University of Zaragoza (Spain). Her research has focused on the identification of natural variation for crop improvement, and on the development of genetic and genomic resources to characterize and exploit that variation. Her work on barley facilitated the selection of targets for the improvement of malting quality and cold tolerance in breeding programs. Also, she was involved in the genetic characterization of the USDA barley core collection, one of the most widely used populations to identify novel variation for biotic and abiotic stresses. More recently, she has helped develop genome resources for cowpea, a warm-season legume of critical importance for sub-Saharan Africa. She works in close collaboration with breeders in West Africa to integrate genetic information with phenotypic variation for agronomic, quality and disease resistance traits to facilitate the development of new varieties. She will be faculty instructor of Genetics.
Research Interests
Extension and Outreach
Teaching