Jeffords Hall
63 Carrigan Drive
Burlington, VT 05405
United States
BIO
Yolanda grew up in the Mid-west and East Coast of the US, where she developed a concern around human impacts on the natural world. For her undergraduate degree, she majored in Natural Resource Management at Rutgers University. As an undergraduate student, she helped start the two-acre Cook College Student Organic Farm, where she co-managed a group of student volunteers. While on the farm, she developed an interest in agroecology, insect-plant interactions, and evolutionary ecology. For her Ph. D., she studied the role of crop domestication in altering tritrophic interaction at UC Berkeley. In following her interests to understand how the origin of agriculture shapes the origin of insects as pests, she did a postdoc in population genetics of an invasive fly. In order to understand the role of science in sustainable development, she worked as an Entomologist studying host plant resistance at the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines, where she stayed for four years. She returned to the US to start a position at University of Vermont, where she has held the position of Associate Professor since 2015.
Area(s) of expertise
How crop domestication and breeding shape insect-plant interactions, farmer influence on evolutionary processes in agroecosystems, conservation and utilization of crop landraces in centers of origin.
Bio
Yolanda grew up in the Mid-west and East Coast of the US, where she developed a concern around human impacts on the natural world. For her undergraduate degree, she majored in Natural Resource Management at Rutgers University. As an undergraduate student, she helped start the two-acre Cook College Student Organic Farm, where she co-managed a group of student volunteers. While on the farm, she developed an interest in agroecology, insect-plant interactions, and evolutionary ecology. For her Ph. D., she studied the role of crop domestication in altering tritrophic interaction at UC Berkeley. In following her interests to understand how the origin of agriculture shapes the origin of insects as pests, she did a postdoc in population genetics of an invasive fly. In order to understand the role of science in sustainable development, she worked as an Entomologist studying host plant resistance at the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines, where she stayed for four years. She returned to the US to start a position at University of Vermont, where she has held the position of Associate Professor since 2015.
Areas of Expertise
How crop domestication and breeding shape insect-plant interactions, farmer influence on evolutionary processes in agroecosystems, conservation and utilization of crop landraces in centers of origin.