Here I outline my passion in sciences. Read my works on ORCID or Google Scholar. Last updated in May 2025

Intellectual Vitality

Interests

• Photosynthesis - How do plants use sunlight to turn air, water, and dirt into food?
• Climate change mitigation strategies, particularly on carbon sequestation and food/agriculture
• Science Education & Community engagement
• Data-driven agricultural & food system management
• Plant-based/alternative protein food sources

Core Skills

Plant Physiology

Plant growth analysis, Gas exchange measurements, Yield component analysis, Phenotyping abiotic stress responses

Horticulture & Agronomy

Experiment design, Controlled environments (greenhouse, growth chamber), Hydroponics, Farm & Greenhouse management, Plant propagation

Plant Breeding & Genetics

Genome-wide Association Analyses, QTL mapping, Joint-linkage mapping, Functional characterization of candidate genes

Biotechnology

Synthetic Biology, PCR, DNA/RNA extraction, Cloning, Gel electrophorysis, Cell & Tissue culture, Agrobacterium-mediated transformation

Statistical Analyses

Summary Statistics, Hypothesis testing, Inference, Modelling (Mixed Models, Uni/Multivariate), Diverse toolkits (R/SPSS/GenStat)

Project Development & Management

Writing proposal/report, Strategic planning, Regulatory compliance (esp. Lab safety), Budget management, Stakeholder management, Leading multicultural/multidisciplinary teams

Educational Management

Formal & Non-formal settings, Curriculum development, Online/in-person instruction, Inclusive learning, Tutoring (biology, chemistry, statistics), Engaging with diverse learners including learners with disabilities

Communication

English (Professional), Thai (Native), Spanish (Intermediate), Chinese (Conversational), R (Functional)

Current Positions & Active Projects

• Plant Bioengineering Researcher at Joint Bioenergy Institute
  • I develop plant-based strategies to maximize carbon sequestration and bio-product generation to improve energy and climate resilience.
• Light, Sugar, Caution!
  • A meta-analysis and cautionary review on translating and interpretting results from Arabidopsis experiments on agar plates for crop production (a manuscript in progress).
• ORCHID READY v. 2025/1
  • A free hands-on skill development workshop series to members of San Francisco Orchid Society and the general public.
• Plant Sciences for All
  • An open-source curriculum to help everyone understand the plant world!
    

Past Projects

• Mission N-Possible - Influence of Nitrogen Forms on Small Grain Crop Carbon Assimilation, providing genetic and management strategies to sustain nutritional qualities of food crops to meet the challenge of Climate Change!
  • An open-access copy of my Ph.D. dissertation is available on ProQuest (may require log-in) and eScholarship (publicly accessible!)! I digested the key insights and shared my perspective on sciences in just < 1 hr here on AggieVideo!.
  • I made an app to visualize FAO’s data on “Where do we get protein in our daily diets?”. See how major protein sources (and intake) vary across the world!
  • I shared my research on the big stage at American Society of Plant Biologists’ annual meeting 2023 “What would a plant eat for lunch?”
  • Watch my award-winning talk “Mission N-Possible”

• Foodshot 2.0 Precision Protein Challenge, I worked with Foodshot Global, a NYC-based venture capital aggregator to launch a quest to find the ‘moonshot’ ideas for our global food system, as part of the Grad Innovator Fellowship 2020.
• What makes modern tomato much more productive than 50 years ago? - Yield Component Analysis of Dutch Greenhouse Tomato (Horticulture and Product Physiology, Wageningen University).
• What happens when plants drink salty water? - Functional characterization of candidate loci for salt stress tolerance in Arabidopsis thaliana (Laboratory of Plant Physiology, Wageningen University).
• Adaptable, Adoptable, & Affordable - I helped farmers in Thailand grow the new high-value orchid by figuring out what local growing materials can help plants better deal with limited water resource - Vanilla seedling establishment (Department of Horticulture, Kasetsart University).

Education

• Ph.D. in Horticulture and Agronomy, with emphasis on Plant Physiology and Plant Breeding - University of California, Davis, The United States of America
  
• M.S. in Plant Sciences with a specialization in Greenhouse Horticulture, with cum laude - Wageningen University, The Netherlands
  
• B.Sc. in Agricultural Sciences, with 1st class honors - Kasetsart University, Thailand
  

Training & Workshop

• Berkeley Lab Entrepreneurship Training 2025 (Lawrence Berkeley National Lab)
• Food, Ag and Health Entrepreneurship Academy 2018 (UC Davis)
• Leaders for the future (UC Davis)
• Modern Programming in Genomic Prediction Short Course (UC Davis)
• PlantingScience Digging Deeper 2017: Developing a Model for Collaborative Teacher/Scientist Professional Development (Botanical Society of America and American Society of Plant Biologists)
• Wilderness First Aid & American Heart Association CPR (Sierra Rescue International/Outdoor Adventure UC Davis)
• Specialized Academic Coursework
  • UC Davis - Field Techniques in Plant Physiology, Applied multivariate modelling in agricultural and environmental sciences
  • Wageningen University - Advanced Methods for Plant-Climate Research in Controlled Environments, Greenhouse Technology, Physiology and Development of Plants, Quantitative Aspects of Crop production, Product Quality and Post-harvest Physiology