Dr. Carlos Rodriguez Lopez has joined the UK Department of Horticulture as an assistant professor. He is originally from the Canary Islands (Spain), where he graduated in Biology (Botany) at the University of La Laguna. Carlos did his postgraduate studies (Master of Science in Plant Biotechnology and Ph.D. in Agricultural Botany) at the School of Plant Sciences at the University of Reading (England, United Kingdom). Since then he has worked as a postdoctoral researcher in the Institute of Biomedicine of Valencia (IBV-CSIC, Spain), the Royal Botanical Garden (Madrid, Spain), the Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences at Aberystwyth University (Wales, United Kingdom) and the School of Agriculture Food and Wine (AFW) at the University of Adelaide (Australia). At AFW, Carlos acted as the Epigenetics Research Coordinator and leader of the Environmental Epigenetics and Genetics Group between 2015 and 2017. During this time, he also coordinated two Master in Plant Biotechnology courses (i.e. “Regulatory Approval of GM Plants” and “Extended Research Project Courses”). His current research is focused in the field of environmental genomics including plant/microbiome and epigenome/environment interactions in crop and wild species. Carlos is also interested in biomarker discovery for human health, forensics, agriculture, food quality and security. Carlos can be reached at carlos.rodriguezlopez@uky.edu and 859-257-5020, ext. 80749.