Speaker

Kyria Boundy-Mills has been the Curator of the Phaff Yeast Culture Collection in the Department of Food Science and Technology at the University of California Davis since 1999. This collection is the fourth largest of its kind in the world, with over 7,000 yeasts belonging to over 800 different species. Her job as curator involves maintaining the collection, distributing yeasts to researchers around the world, and expanding and improving the collection. She also utilizes this tremendously diverse collection in her own research program. She has published over 50 peer reviewed publications and book chapters on yeast/insect associations, food fermentations, yeast taxonomy, oleaginous yeasts, and yeast culture collections. She serves on the executive board of the World Federation of Culture Collections, and the steering committee of the US Culture Collection Network.