Fields of interest: Market/Value chain-oriented breeding, Genetics and Crops improvement, Genetic resources/stocks management (molecular characterization and conservation), Speed/smart breeding, Seed business and seed system.

Nasser Yao has more than 20 year-experience working in Research and Development. He is currently the Pan-African Coordinator of the Demand/Market-led Breeding project a Food Security Alliance, formed by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), the Crawford Fund, the Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture (SFSA) and several education and research institutions in Africa. Yao is currently based at the Alliance Bioversity International-CIAT (ABC), Nairobi, Kenya. Yao champions, implements and promotes market-led/oriented breeding approach and seed system with respect to biodiversity by building up/broadening genetic stocks.

Prior to this position, Yao was Scientist-Molecular Plant breeder and Pan-African Coordinator of the Demand/Market-led breeding portfolio at the BecA-ILRI Hub. He led the Molecular Breeding Platform which was centered around the Demand/Market-led breeding initiative, the Breeding Management System, the Integrated Genotyping Service and Support (IGSS) platform and the KASP genotyping platform; to achieve faster and higher rate of genetic gain as well as higher adoption of released varieties. Yao’s role as Lead breeder for the IGGS project and Lead breeding facilitator for the IBP (Integrated Breeding Platform) hub for east, central and southern Africa, was poised to leverage opportunities of DNA marker technologies and to advocate the business side of breeding to African breeding programs in Sub Saharan Africa through customized trainings and joint implementation of key activities along the breeding pipeline aiming at increasing genetic gain in economically Important crop.

Yao was also Principal Rice Breeder (Ivorian National Agricultural Research Center: CNRA), Research Fellow, Research Associate, Visiting scientist and Consultant for the Nested Associated Mapping and Rice Challenge Initiatives projects (AfricaRice).

Yao has a track record of more than 25 published articles in peer-review journals, 2 book chapters, several posters and has been key note speaker in several international conferences and fora. He has supervised and mentored more than 60 visiting scientists, PhD students and research fellows