Karlene Negus grew up on a corn and cattle farm — but now she’s training artificial intelligence models to predict how crops like corn and sorghum will perform in the field. A 2025 National Association for Plant Breeding (NAPB) Borlaug Scholar and rising star in agricultural data science, she had her “aha” moment while mapping out the vast landscape of crop improvement and realizing how much untapped potential AI held for transforming plant breeding.
