Jeshurun Asher M. Tarun is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Illinois in the lab of Laurie Leonelli. His research is focused on building a canopy-specific promoter database in soybean and cowpea to enable targeted engineering of photosynthesis and other processes at specific levels within the canopy. For RIPE, Asher will be investigating gene expression in various crop species in both field and greenhouse settings related to light intensity and develop transient assays to verify candidate promoters that drive gene expression under these conditions. Asher earned his bachelor's degree in agronomy and master's degree in plant breeding and genetics at the University of the Philippines Los Baños. He later went on to earn his doctorate in crop sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His work has been published in Plant, Cell & Environment and Genes.