Rate My Professor Natalia De Leon Gatti

Natalia de Leon Gatti is a Professor in the Department of Plant and Agroecosystem Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, specializing in maize breeding and genetics. She chairs the Plant Breeding and Plant Genetics Program and leads the Corn Breeding project. Her research focuses on genotype-by-environment interactions, phenotypic plasticity, genomic prediction, heterosis, and traits enhancing grain yield, silage quality, and biofuel production. She integrates phenotypic, genotypic, and expression data to advance plant breeding and quantitative genetics, particularly for biomass increase and cell wall composition in maize. De Leon Gatti earned a B.S. in Agronomy from the Argentinean Catholic University in 1997, an M.S. in Plant Breeding and Plant Genetics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2000, and a Ph.D. in the same field from the same institution in 2002. Her professional career includes a postdoctoral fellowship in Crop and Soil Sciences at Michigan State University (2003-2004), roles as corn breeder and research station manager at Golden Harvest and Syngenta Seeds (2004-2006), and faculty appointments at UW-Madison: Assistant Professor (2006-2013), Associate Professor (2013-2017), and Professor since 2017, with a 75% research and 25% teaching assignment.