Steven Burgess is an assistant professor at the University of Illinois. His research focuses on optimizing the way the plants capture sunlight and use the energy for growth. For the RIPE project, he screened diverse varieties of cowpea to identify genetic markers controlling the efficiency of photosynthesis, exploring the effect of altering photoprotective mechanisms on photosynthetic performance, and characterizing the performance of crops with improved photosynthetic efficiency in the greenhouse and during field trials. Steven earned his bachelor's degree in biochemistry from the University of Edinburgh. He went on to receive his doctorate in molecular biology from Imperial College London. Steven did his postdoctoral work at the University of Cambridge in C4 photosynthesis, molecular biology, and genomics.