Laura M. Boykin, PhD TED Senior Fellow
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Laura M. Boykin

Working to increase food security globally by understanding the viruses transmitted by  whiteflies and other insect pests.

Senior Research Fellow
Gifted Citizen 2017
Senior TED Fellow 2017
CV 
Googlescholar
TED Blog
[email protected]


Previous long-term visitors and previous students of the Boykin Lab:
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Tara Sharma

Honours student sequencing the whitefly genomes using the Oxford Nanopore MinION and developing data analysis pipelines to accurately and quickly discern between whitefly species.

Completed with First class 
honors December 2019

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Dr. Nick Waipaira and Dr. Amanda Black

Professors visiting to learn more about portable sequencing for Maori communities in New Zealand.  Collaboration with the Cassava Virus Action Project.  

December 2019

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Tonny Kinene

PhD Student working to protect cassava from the African cassava whitefly in Tanzania, Uganda, and Malawi.

​Completed PhD- August 2019 

Website: kinenetonny.wixsite.com/research
Funded by:  UWA and previously Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

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James Wainaina

PhD student working to increase food security in Kenya by controlling whiteflies on the common bean.  

Completed PhD- December 2018
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Funded by:  Australian Award

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Tony Bakelana

Visiting scientists from Democratic Republic of Congo, INERA. Interested in finding the casual agent of what is killing cassava in DRC.

Funded by: WAVE, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

​June 2018

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Professor Jane Polston

Professor Polston is a plant virologist at the University of Florida. 

She came to visit to learn about Nanopore sequencing in the field for farmers.


​November 2019
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Bruno Rossitto De Marchi

Sandwich PhD student working to understand the whitefly diversity in Brazil.

Funded by: Science without Borders

University in Brazil: Universidade Estadual Paulista

​Feb 2016- Feb 2017 at UWA and completed his PhD September 2018

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Professor Renate Krause-Sakate

Professor Krause-Skate is a professor at São Paulo State University and plant virologist.

We study whiteflies and whitefly transmitted viruses in Brazil.


​October 2016

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Anders Savill

​Computer guru building a species identification tool for www.whiteflybase.com.


Funded by: UWA and previously Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
moved to CSIRO March 2018

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Stephen Lamb

Honors student, mathematician, working to analyze Nanopore sequence data more efficiently using neural networks and reservoir computing.

Started a PhD in Mathematics at UWA Feb. 2018

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Myriam Rodrigues

Undergraduate Research Scholar from University of Western Australia

Working on  www.whiteflybase.org and also bioinformatics.

​June 2016-January 2017

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Ammar Ghalab

Undergraduate Research Scholar from University of Alberta Canada

​Funded by: QE Diamond Jubilee scholarship

May 2016- September 2016 

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Dr. Jianyang Guo

Dr. Guo is a visiting scholar from the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences. He is studying the endosymbionts of Bemisia species.

​Feb. 2015- March 2016

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Dr. Peter Sseruwagi

Dr Sseruwagi is a Research Scientist at Mikocheni Agricultural Research Institute in Tanzania.

We study CMD, CBSD and whiteflies together.

​December 2014 and September 2015

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Professor Laura Kubatko

Dr. Kubatko is a Professor at The Ohio State University.  We study species tree estimation of whiteflies and CBSD

November 2015 and February 2016

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Jamisse Amisse

​Jamisse is a PhD student enrolled at JKUAT in Kenya but he is based in Mozambique.

CBSD diversity in Mozambique using NGS data.


​November 2015

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Jeanine Umfuyisoni 

Jeanine is an MSc student from Rwanda. She is a plant virologist.

We study CBSD and alternative hosts of CBSD



​July 2016

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Leighland, Nik, Dennis, Marco and Wan-Ying

Computing Students
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http://www.whiteflybase.org
June- December 2015

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Dr. Joseph Ndunguru

Dr. Ndunguru is the director of Mikocheni Agricultural Research Institute in Tanzania.  We study CBSD together.


​December 2014 and September 2015

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Dr. Titus Alicai

Dr. Alicai is a Principal Research Officer (Plant Virologist) and Programme Leader, Root Crops Research Programme at NaCRRI in Uganda

We study CBSD together.

​June 2015

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James Mushayija

James is a biosecurity specialist in Rwanda.  He is a Senior Africa/Australia CRC Fellow



​November 2015

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Professor Elijah Ateka

Professor Ateka is a professor at JKUAT and a plant virologist.

We study CBSD evolution in Kenya and beyond and whiteflies

​January 2016

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​Sunadda Chaovalit

Sunadda is a whitefly morphology expert. She came to share her knowledge and learn molecular identification techniques.  

​October 2016


Contact   |   Cassava Virus Action Project
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Updated August 27, 2022