Assistant Professor
Plant Science
McGill University
Canada
Dr. Olivia Wilkins leads the Plant Systems Biology research group at McGill University. She received her PhD from the University of Toronto in 2010. From 2011 to 2015, she was a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Genomics and Systems Biology at New York University. In 2015, she was a Visiting Scientist at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT. In 2013, she was awarded a Basic Research to Enable Agricultural Development Award from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. She serves on the editorial boards of multiple scientific journals including Frontiers in Plant Science Abiotic Stress, BMC Plant Biology, and Scientific Reports.
Gene regulatory networks are at the interface between environmental perception and environmental response in all living things. My research uses the tools of systems biology to study and manipulate gene regulatory networks in cereal crops in order to improve their response to climate change-associated environmental stressors.