Michael Kantar is currently an assistant professor at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa where he was appointed in 2016. He received his PhD from the University of Minnesota in 2013 and was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of British Columbia 2013-2015. In 2019-2020 he was the chair of the Plant Breeding Coordinating Committee. In 2019 He was a senior BARD research fellow. He was a 2018 AAAS Leshner Leadership Institute Public Engagement Fellow. His research focuses on Plant Breeding, Neo-domestication, crop wild relatives, food security, and the genetic basis of local adaptation. He works extensively with people around the world actively collaborating with Kew Gardens in London, the International Rice Research institute in the Philippines and Center for Tropical Agriculture in Columbia.
