Events

April 22, 2025 • 12 PM ET • Virtual

Join us for a virtual armchair conversation on groundbreaking advances in breeding plants to thrive in a warming world.

This event features William Cullina, The F. Otto Haas Executive Director at the Morris Arboretum & Gardens, and Dr. Doris Wagner, DiMaura Professor of Biology at Penn Arts & Sciences. Dr. Wagner is also the inaugural director of the Penn Plant Adaptability and Resilience Center (Plant ARC), a new initiative dedicated to sustainable, plant-based solutions for addressing climate change.  They will engage in a captivating discussion about Plant ARC’s pioneering research on cellular precision editing and other innovative approaches to developing climate-resistant plants.

Meet the Panelists 

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Introductions by
Alexandra (Lexa) Edsall, GCP’16, GCP’17
Chair, Board of Advisors, Morris Arboretum & Gardens

Since joining the Morris’s Board of Advisors in 2020, Lexa Edsall has been an active member of the Morris’s Master Planning Working Group. Edsall has a deep career in politics and law, serving in the offices of the deputy attorney general and the solicitor general at the US Department of Justice; as an associate at Covington & Burling; as a judicial clerk to Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg; and as senior adviser to the general counsel at the US Department of the Treasury. Edsall earned her BA and law degree from Harvard University and has a master of city planning degree from the University of Pennsylvania’s Stuart Weitzman School of Design.

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William Cullina
F. Otto Haas Executive Director, Morris Arboretum & Gardens

Prior to joining the Morris, William Cullina was the president and CEO of Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens for 8 years. He holds degrees in plant science and psychology and has been working in public horticulture for 30 years. He has extensive experience in commercial nursery production as well as a background in horticultural and forestry research. Cullina is a well-known author and a recognized authority on North American native plants.

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Doris Wagner
DiMaura Professor of Biology, Penn Arts & Sciences

Doris Wagner is the inaugural director of the Penn Plant Adaptability and Resilience Center (Plant ARC), a multidisciplinary center housed in the Department of Biology. The Center focuses on enhancing plant development and fortitude in the face of increasingly common extreme and unpredictable weather events such as heat waves, droughts, and floods. Wagner is a leader in the fields of plant biology, chromatin modification, and epigenetics, which involves the reprogramming of cell identity and function. She has received numerous grants from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, and serves as editor-in-chief of Current Opinions in Plant Biology. Wagner holds a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley.