(file photo/farmnewsNOW Staff)

By Alice McFarlane

New cereal crop research chair at USask

USask appoints Sask Wheat research chair to accelerate crop variety development

Aug 18, 2025 | 2:39 PM

A new position has been created at the University of Saskatchewan (USask) that will focus on variety development through applied genomics and pre-breeding strategies.

Dr. Valentyna Klymiuk, who grew up in Ukraine, earned a bachelor of science in biology, a master of science in biology and a PhD in hydrobiology from the Donetsk National University in Ukraine. She holds a second PhD from the University of Haifa in Israel, where she studied plant genetics, genomics, pathology, and use of wheat wild relatives to enhance wheat disease resistance.

Klymiuk has over 10 years of experience in genetics and genomics, specializing in wheat and its wild relatives. She will hold an assistant professor appointment in the College of Agriculture and Bioresources’ Department of Plant Sciences and CDC and will support undergraduate and graduate student training.

“My vision is to bridge advances in science and technology with applied crop breeding, contributing to the CDC’s mission of delivering superior wheat varieties that strengthen the resilience of the agricultural sector,” Klymiuk said.

Dr. Angela Bedard-Haughn (PhD), dean of the College, said the research chair will design and deploy leading-edge strategies and technologies to assess genetic diversity for delivery into new crop varieties that will benefit Saskatchewan producers and the agricultural industry.

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Prior to her appointment, Klymiuk was a research officer in the CDC with Dr. Curtis Pozniak’s research team, managing basic and applied research in Fusarium Head Blight resistance breeding. In this role, she utilized genetics and next-generation genomic approaches for gene discovery, characterization and its application in breeding.

Klymiuk has received numerous awards including the 2019 Jeanie Borlaug Laube Women in Triticum (WIT) Early Career Award and the 2022 Carlotta Award, which recognizes significant contributions of early-career women researchers to wheat research.

The Saskatchewan Wheat Development Commission is funding this research chair position.

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alice.mcfarlane@pattisonmedia.com