Dr Lynne McIntyre

Dr Lynne McIntyre, Crops Program, CSIRO Agriculture and Food Business Unit, has a long standing interest in genetics and genomics for crop improvement.

Lynne was awarded a Bachelor of Science in Agriculture with Honours from the University of Sydney, majoring in genetics, and a Doctor of Philosophy from the Australian National University. Her doctoral studies focussed on the development of molecular genetic and cytogenetic tools to investigate relationships between wheat and its relatives.

After completing her doctorate, Lynne moved to the USA as an Assistant Professor in the School of Agriculture at the University of Missouri in Columbia, where she continued her work in molecular genetic approaches to crop improvement of wheat and rice.

Lynne joined CSIRO in 1990. After working briefly to investigate molecular biological approaches to improve the digestibility of tropical pastures, she returned to continue her focus on molecular genetic approaches to crop improvement. Lynne has led and continues to participate in research that focuses on understanding the genetic complexity and gene basis of significant traits that influence productivity under biotic and abiotic stress conditions in crops including sorghum, sugarcane, and more recently wheat and on developing genetic tools and knowledge to assist in crop improvement.

Lynne was Program Leader of the “Tropical and sub-tropical plant biology” program in CSIRO Plant Industry between 2009-2014 and Research Director of the “Breeding higher value food crops” program in CSIRO Agriculture and Food from 2014 - 2019 and of the Crops Program from 2019 to 2020. As a Chief Research Scientist within the Crops Program, she then focussed on providing strategic input to new operational initiatives including fostering new and better relationships with Australian universities.

In 2021, Lynne retired from CSIRO and returned as an HRF in early 2022. As an HRF, Lynne continues to be passionate about inclusion and diversity, mentoring staff to achieve their potential, and career development.