Prof David Edwards gained an Honours degree in Agricultural Science from the University of Nottingham and a PhD from the Department of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge. He has held positions within academia (University of Adelaide and University of Queensland, Australia; University of Cambridge, UK; and McGill University, Canada), government (Long Ashton Research Centre, UK, Department of Primary Industries, Victoria, Australia) and industry (ICI seeds, UK). David was appointed as a Centenary Professor at The University of Western Australia in 2015. His research interests include the structure and expression of plant genomes, the discovery and application of genome variation and applied bioinformatics, with a focus on crop plants and accelerating crop improvement in the face of climate change. Prof Jacqueline Batley is an ARC Future Fellow at the University of Western Australia. She was awarded her PhD from the University of Bristolin 2001 and moved to Australia in 2002. Jacqueline has expertise in the fi elds of plant and animal molecular biology, genetics and genomics, gained from working in both industry and academia. Her areas of interest include genetic and genomic analysis for applications including genetic diversity, linkage disequilibrium and comparative genomic studies, working across environmental and agricultural areas. Her current research projects include the molecular characterisation of agronomic traits, with a focus on disease resistance in Brassicas, with studies in both the fungal pathogen and the host plant.