Bishal G. Tamang is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Illinois. His research focuses on optimizing canopies, more specifically improving soybean yield by manipulating canopy architecture. For the RIPE project, Bishal will be investigating the role of a novel gene in soybean leaf architecture and surveying the structure and function of a special cell-type in soybean leaf in relation to yield. Bishal earned his bachelor's and master's degrees in agronomy and plant genetics from the Institute of Agriculture and Animal Science at the Tribhuvan University in Nepal. He later went on to earn his doctorate in agronomy and crop sciences at Virginia Tech. His work is published in Plant, Cell and Environment, Planta, and Environmental and Experimental Biology.