Waqar Ali is a graduate student in the complex biosystems department at UNL specializing in CBIO-Integrated Plant Biology. He received his B.Sc. (Hons.) in Agriculture-Plant breeding and genetics from University of Agriculture Faisalabad in 2017 and M.Sc. (Hons.) Agriculture-Plant breeding and genetics in 2019. His master’s thesis title was “Morphometric characterization and expression profiling of wheat genotypes under drought stress” under supervision of Dr. Zaheer Ahmed in Center for Advanced Studies (CAS) at University of Agriculture Faisalabad. After obtaining his M.Sc. degree, He joined Certus Seeds, Evyol group (a private Agriculture R&D company based in Pakistan in 2021. He conducted breeding, screening and adaptability trials of various crops like maize, sorghum, canola, rice and sunflower with primary emphasis on maize. He has experience in handling of large datasets of maize crop. He tackled the whole research farm and performed duties of farm manager effectively. During job, he approached Schnable lab at UNL and joined lab in 2023. He wants to contribute his research efforts in the area of plant biology backed with modern data-driven approaches to overcome forthcoming food security threat.